In St. Louis, Missouri, around 900 teams from across the globe gathered to compete at the VEX Robotics World Championship. The Dread Pirates, a local Moapa Valley team made up of Jace Newsom and Joshua Linford, traveled with their coach, Bryan Linford, and supporters to compete at the four-day event.

For the majority of the competition, the Dread Pirates competed in qualification matches. The team faced a tough match schedule, with many of their matches paired with low-ranking teams. At the end of qualification matches, they ranked 31st out of 80 teams in their division, with the goal of convincing another team to pick them during alliance selection.

“Competing in robotics has been a great experience for me in high school, and last week I had the chance to compete for the last time at Worlds. My team did not rank as high as we hoped, but we had very high expectations. It was through those high expectations and consistent efforts over the last four years that I grew the most,” said Jace Newsom, team member of the Dread Pirates. “My team never looked for a finish line. We just did what was expected of us and more until the end. I spent an abundant amount of time doing robotics, but it was definitely worth it.”

Before Worlds, the Dread Pirates ended the season ranked third in the world for skills. Due to the brand-new fields at Worlds, many high-ranking teams did not perform as well as they expected. The Dread Pirates scored a combined total of 175 points, far from their official record of 219 points at the State Championship. The fields caused inconsistencies because the goals were not worn in, making it much harder to score blocks.

“This year’s World Championship was a lot more challenging than in years past. St. Louis is a fun city, and it was nice to have a change in the venue. Although we did not do as well as we had anticipated, we still finished 23rd out of 870 teams. It has been an incredible four years with Josh and Jace, as the Dread Pirates have been to over 35 tournaments, competed in 460 matches, won over 51 awards, and earned five state titles,” said Bryan Linford, Pirate Robotics coach. “It has been an incredible journey for this team, and I have had the privilege of being a part of it. No other team in Nevada can claim such an incredible record.”

During the closing ceremonies, Override, the new game for the 2026-2027 season, was revealed. The coach was able to get one of the new game objects and will receive the field in the next month. Pirate Robotics freshmen and sophomore teams will start preparing and learning how they can improve their skills to compete at the highest level.