DuBOIS — Based on their performances at the state championships, two DuBois Area High School teams have qualified for the VEX Robotics World Championships which will take place in Dallas, Texas, April 25-27.

This achievement was announced at last week’s DuBois Area School Board work session by Superintendent Wendy Benton and high school physics teacher Jen Keith, who is also one of the advisors for the robotics teams.

Keith, explaining the road which led to the World Championships, said four teams from DAHS recently competed in the Western PA State VEX Robotics Championships at the PennWest Clarion campus. Fifty-eight teams qualified for the state championships and competed in the VEX Robotics game, Spin Up, presented by the Robotics Education & Competition (REC) Foundation. Spin Up, she said, requires students to design, build, and code a robot to gather and toss foam disks into an elevated goal (similar to disc golf). They must also turn rollers on the field to specific colors and then expand to cover as much of the field as possible in the last 10 seconds of each 2-minute round.

“The Mad Scientists” team of Jack Stringer (grade nine), Aiden Via (grade nine), and Derrick Weber (grade eight) was undefeated in the preliminary rounds and went into the elimination rounds in second place. “Unfortunately, they lost in the quarterfinals but still qualified for the World Championships by winning the Innovate Award for their approach to their robot design,” said Keith.

The team of Tyler Baughman (grade 11), Madison DeLarme (grade 12), Justin Rake (grade 10), and CJ Mowrey (grade 10), nicknamed “99 Problems,” qualified for the World Championships based on their skills’ score. Keith said skills are when the team is on a game field by themselves and has 60 seconds to score as many points as possible. Keith said they must complete a 60-second round with a driver controlling the robot and a 60-second round of the robot running autonomously. With the highest autonomous score at the state competition, team 99 Problems finished third overall in skills. Because other teams double-qualified by winning an award and reaching the finals match, 99 Problems was invited to the World Championships.

“It was very shocking but also very exciting,” said Keith. “I definitely would like to commend the students for what they did these…