Forty-two competitors from Dunedin, Invercargill, Queenstown and Christchurch will look to impress the judges at Moana Pool.
The figures competition will be held today from 2.15pm, while the routines will take place just after 9am tomorrow.
Competitors receive a score in both and the totals are combined to find the winner.
They are broken up into categories based on age.
However, competitors also need star awards to show they are at a good enough standard to advance to the higher grades at national and regional level.
With Dunedin club Aqua Gold in a rebuilding phase, the opportunity to watch the sport could act as a means of getting more people involved.
The club had 20 children at one stage, but was down to four.
Its coaches had moved on and many of the members had got older and decided to focus on other things.
Getting new children involved was something it hoped to do, with an emphasis on the music side of the sport.
''Once they do it, they do enjoy it,'' club president and championship meet manager Phyll Esplin said.
''They enjoy the music side of it and get quite excited about that.
''But it is hard at first because they've got to have some core strength to do things like the somersault and walkovers and things.
''So it isn't easy, it's a very difficult sport.''
Flexibility and core strength were big components, allowing competitors to do things with grace.
Its figures section, which involves being judged on the technical aspects of how actions are performed, could be particularly challenging.
Being good at the figures helped with routines, however, as the figures were used in routines.
However, as many sports found, it proved difficult getting children to carry on with it when they got older.
They began by training once or twice a week as beginners, before reaching a higher level where they needed to be doing something everyday.
''If you want to go past about 16 or 17 years of age, you've really got to start putting in the hard yards.
''It's a bit like swimming. If you've got a swimmer, they've got to start going in at 5 o'clock in the morning and doing two lots of training a day.
''When they become high in the synchro, they've got to start doing gym work and more flexibility work and things like that.''
A judging clinic will also be held by New Zealand's only FINA A judge Jo Burns.
Burns, who has judged at major international competitions, will head the judging panel this weekend.
She was formerly of Dunedin, having attended Queen's High School, but now lives in Hawke's Bay.
