The Twisted Botz, a home-school high school robotics team from Gloucester, took first place in the Toss Up robotics division of the 2014 International VEX Summer Games held July 10-12 in Honolulu, Hawaii.

The local team, which competes as VEX robotics competition team 177, qualified for the summer games by winning the Virginia State Championship. In Hawaii, team 177 competed with 56 other teams from China, Lebanon, Mexico, Canada, Puerto Rico and the U.S. in the Toss Up robotics division.

Team 177 finished qualifying rounds in 12th place with a 5-3 record. During alliance selections for the elimination rounds, the captain of alliance #7, a team from Idaho, selected 177 and a team from New Jersey to join his alliance.

Alliance #7 defeated alliance #2 in the quarterfinals and alliance #6 in the semifinals before beating an all-Chinese team, alliance #8, in the finals for the tournament championship. Team 177 also placed fourth in robot driving and third in programming in the Skills Ch...