The sixth annual Beaver County RoboSumo competition was held in the Freedom Area Middle School gym on Thursday,  Jan. 23. RoboSumo is a competition where students design and program Lego Mindstorm robots to find and push their opponents off the edge of a round board. The robots start in the center of the circular board and move to the edge, turn around, then fight.

Thirty-three teams from the middle school division and four teams from the high school division with over 100 kids from nine different schools participating in the competition. There were six round robins and the top eight out of 33 teams went to the finals. 

The students from Freedom Middle School who participated are Logan Larrick, eighth grade, and Gabe Sanders, Beau DeThomas, Christopher Denkovich, and Jason Mengel, seventh grade. Freedom ninth-grade students Luke Snavely, David Denkovich, and Jacob  DiCenzo, who participated last year, refereed during the competition after they moved up to the high school. 

 Last year, Freedom students took second and third place. Sadly, this year none of the Freedom teams made it into the finals. The top three teams were Hopewell in first and second and Riverside in third.  

“Over prepare, over practice, do your best, and add a flamethrower.” is the advice from DeThomas for next year’s competitors.  Freedom students are pumped for next year’s competition and are hoping for redemption.