Time Warner Cable is working to "Connect A Million Minds," a company wide effort to focus kids on science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Here in Rochester, it means sponsoring a team as it seeks to build a complex robot.

It's the kickoff some local young engineers have been waiting for.

"Just really excited," says Ben Knopf of the McQuaid Robotics Team. "I don't know what to expect."

This year's FIRST Robotics Competition is attracting teams from around the world.

"A few years ago I went to see the competition and saw big robots crashing into each other and fell in love," says Joshua Kwiatkowski of McQuaid.

Local teams received their kids Saturday morning, a mix of all kinds of parts. The goal is to build a robot to compete in a game that appears to be half soccer, half American Gladiators.

"The field is definitely different last year," says Nick Donato of the Greece Gladiators. "There's no low friction field this year."

"We've been brainstorming ideas ever since we walked out of that place," says Andrea Schollnick of Pittsford Robotics.

There was all kinds of brainstorming going on at McQuaid Jesuit High School Saturday afternoon.

"We just got the game and we're strategizing what aspects of the game we're going to pursue," says team member Nicolas Brown.

This is McQuaid's first year in the competition.

"Handling the ball without grabbing it, kind of like a soccer player does, that's going to be a challenge," says team advisor Ed Rivera. "I'm really enjoying seeing the teamwork starting to happen now."

"There's definitely a lot of coordination going on," says Brown. "Certain being seeing specific things, contributing around ideas and just having general collaboration."

Each team has three months to plan and construct its robot before the regional competition at RIT in March, where 40 teams will compete for a chance to go to nationals in Atlanta.

We're just going to work our hardest," says Schollnick. "Even if we lose at least we gain knowledge for the next year, and it's all about how hard we work and what we put in."

Each team also has a corporate sponsor. Time Warner Cable is proud to sponsor the McQuaid Robotics Team for its first year in the competition. Time Warner Cable is the parent company of YNN Rochester.

For more information on the FIRST Robotics Competition and the Connect A Million Minds campaign, click on the link below.

Connect A Million Minds