The annual 'FIRST Robotics Long Island Regional Competition' kicked off at Hofstra University.

High school students from across Long Island set up on Thursday to battle their bots on Friday in the field.

A total of 49 robotics teams created robots from scratch.

They had several weeks to design, build and program a robot that can compete in the challenges of the game that will earn them game points.

"We just won our first match of the day, so hopefully, it will go smoothly from there," said Saanvi Sharma, junior at Plainview-Old Bethpage High School. "I have learned many useful life skills that I plan on using once I graduate from this program and into college."

Optimum is a proud sponsor of FIRST Long Island. This year, Optimum is sponsoring 75 teams across 12 states and 14 are competing at Hofstra.

Optimum also sponsored other regional events this year in Hudson Valley, Texas, North Carolina, New York City and New Jersey.

A few of the winning teams will all move on to compete at the World Championships in Houston in April.