BEST Robotics

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BEST, Boosting Engineering, Science, and Technology, is a national 6-week robotics competition in the United States held each fall, designed to help interest middle school and high school students in possible engineering careers. The games are similar in scale to the FIRST Tech Challenge.

History

The idea for a BEST (Boosting Engineering, Science, and Technology) competition originated in 1993 when two Texas Instruments (TI) engineers, Ted Mahler and Steve Marum, were serving as guides for Engineering Day at their company site in Sherman. Together with a group of high school students, they watched a video of freshmen building a robot in Woodie Flowers' class at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The high school students were so interested that Ted and Steve said, "Why don't we do this?"

With enthusiastic approval from TI management, North Texas BEST was born. The first competition was held in 1993 with 14 schools and 221 students (including one team from San Antonio).

After learning that a San Antonio group had formed a non-profit organization to support a BEST event, North Texas BEST mentored them in providing their own BEST competition. Thus, San Antonio BEST, the second BEST competition site (or "hub"), was started in 1994. The two groups - North Texas and San Antonio - decided to meet for Texas BEST, a state playoff at Howard Payne University in Brownwood, TX.

In 1995, more hubs were started as word spread: Collin County BEST (Frisco, TX); West Texas BEST (Texas Tech University in Lubbock); and Chicago BEST. Also, that year, Texas BEST - the "state championship" - became an annual event sponsored by Texas Instruments and Texas A&M University. BEST continued to grow, adding 3–4 hubs annually. In 1997, the 4-year old organization established itself as a 501(c)3 non-profit corporation in the state of Texas as BEST Robotics, Inc. (BRI). The growth continued at a similar pace, spreading throughout Texas and neighboring states (Arkansas, Colorado, Oklahoma, New Mexico) and even further (Kansas, Illinois, Kentucky and even California).

In 2001 BEST held its first New Hub Workshop at Texas Instruments in Dallas. This sparked rapid growth in the next several years throughout Alabama and the south. In 2003, BEST's second regional championship was born, South's BEST, at Auburn University, Alabama. Thirty-six teams from nine hubs in Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Ohio, and Illinois competed. Texas BEST featured 60 teams from 17 hubs in five states.

BEST continued to grow as many colleges and universities began organizing hubs. The reach became wider with hubs as far apart as Fargo, North Dakota and New Britain, Connecticut. Two additional championships were added as the program expanded across the US bringing the total to four. Frontier Trails BEST championship was established in Fort Smith, Arkansas and Northern Plains BEST championship in Fargo, North Dakota.

In 2009, the program started its bi-annual BEST National Conference for volunteers and teachers. The conference is held during the summer of odd years and provides a great place to share information. There are typically tracks regarding hub execution, technical training, design process, and other teacher training.

In 2010, BEST held its first BEST National Championship, taking the top finishers from each of the then 3 regional championships and pitting them head-to-head in a final nationwide competition to find the best team in the country.

BEST has continued to enjoy growth as a volunteer organization, while maintaining its core values of no entry fees, ties to the educational system and student-led design/construction.

Structure

Currently, BEST has hubs across the country. There are approximately 18,000 students, 875+ teams, 45 hubs in 19 states, and 4 regionals. Any school may start a team and there is no cost to participate. The hubs rely on local financial support from businesses and universities. Anyone can start a new hub serving a minimum of eight teams. On average, the cost for the first year of running a hub with 24 teams is $28,000.

Based on the task for the year, each team is given a parts list and kit of parts which they use to construct a robot. This kit includes parts such as wood and PVC, along with the RC components necessary to control the robot. However, not every item on the parts list is supplied by BEST and some must be obtained by the team. Items not on the list are not allowed, and the robot will be checked prior to competition for illegal items. Teams are given six weeks from kickoff to design and build the robot and finish other competition tasks, such as writing an engineering notebook about their design and construction process.

The final robot must fit in a 2 foot cube at the beginning of each round of competition. The robot must also weigh under 24 pounds. Once a round has started, the robot can expand beyond the 2 foot cube via retractable arms, etc.

The game task is different each year, but historically the robot has often needed an arm with different grabbing abilities. One year the game centered on team work to try to get students to work together. The winning teams from local competition sites, or hubs, advance to regional championship sites after the local competition has ended.

Competition

BEST Robotics includes two elements: a robot competition, in which teams attempt to score as many points as possible in head-to-head competition, and the BEST award. The BEST award is more complex, encompassing such tasks as writing a high-quality technical notebook or engineering journal (which will be used to judge who will be a "wild card" in the semi-finals. That is, if their robot does not do well, they will still make it to the semi-finals, and have a chance to win). The BEST Award also involves marketing the team, promoting BEST, an interview, delivering an oral presentation to a panel of judges, and creating an exhibit that displays information about the team.

BEST encourages its teams to follow an engineering process, similar to the engineering process used in many engineering jobs. This gives students a taste of what they may have to do in future engineering jobs. It also hopes to get students excited about the field of engineering and more likely to go into it. Although BEST has not been able to keep up with alumni to see if BEST has had an effect on their career path, similar robotics competitions, like FIRST, show that activities like BEST do have a higher rate of students going into science and engineering related fields.

Another challenge teams involved in BEST face is limited materials—the primary construction materials used in BEST are simple and easily formed. These materials include PVC pipe, string, plywood, a limited quantity of sheet metal, and a bit of aluminum, as well as miscellaneous hardware, 2 large motors and 2 small motors, and the electronics necessary to run these motors and the 3 provided servos. At the beginning of competition, the robot is checked over to make sure that no illegal parts are used. Originally, old printers were also part of the BEST kit and printer parts could be used on the machine. The limited materials make students think much more creatively with what they are given.

First National Championship Results

BEST Award

The BEST Award is the highest honor that any team can receive. It goes to the team that best embodies the spirit of the BEST program.

  • 1st Place: Metro Homeschool, Team 229 (Blue Springs, Missouri – River Valley BEST)
  • 2nd Place: United Engineering & Technology Magnet, Team 16 (Laredo, Texas – San Antonio BEST)
  • 3rd Place: Wetumpka High School, Team 25 (Wetumpka, Alabama – War Eagle BEST)

Robot Game

The Robotics Awards are given to the teams who scored the most points in the game, which includes preliminary, semi-final, and championship matches.

  • 1st Place Robotics: Conway High School, Team 185 (Conway, Missouri – NorthArk BEST)
  • 2nd Place Robotics: United Engineering &Technology Magnet, Team 16 (Laredo, Texas – San Antonio BEST)
  • 3rd Place Robotics: McFadden School of Excellence, Team 129 (Murfreesboro, Tenn. – Music City BEST)
  • 4th Place Robotics: Wetumpka High School, Team 25 (Wetumpka, Alabama – War Eagle BEST)

Past Year's Challenges

The full list is located on BESTInc.org:

  • 2014 Bladerunner
  • 2013 Gatekeeper 2013
  • 2012 Warp XX
  • 2011 Bugs
  • 2010 Total Recall
  • 2009 High Octane
  • 2008 Just Plane Crazy
  • 2007 2021: A Robot Odyssey
  • 2006 Laundry Quandary
  • 2005 Mission to Hubble
  • 2004 BEST Fever
  • 2003 Transfusion Confusion
  • 2002 Warp X
  • 2001 RAD to the CORE
  • 2000 Pandemonium in the Smithsonian
  • 1999 Rocket Race: The Alien Escape
  • 1998 Toxic Troubles
  • 1997 Dynamite Duel
  • 1996 Block N' Load
  • 1995 TOTALly aweSUM
  • 1994 Bumble Rumble
  • 1993 PVC Insanity

Organizational Goals

BEST's goals as an organization are to:

  • Promote the growth of hubs (local competition sites) across the U.S., thus maximizing the “pipeline” of future engineers, scientists, and technical professionals.
  • Increase hub growth among two-year technical colleges and four-year colleges and universities.
  • Promote the involvement of rural and inner city schools which often have limited access to programs of this nature.
  • Increase participation of women and minority students.
  • Develop new and foster existing alliances with national organizations that are stakeholders in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) education.
  • Recruit national corporate sponsors.
  • Develop educational partnerships with organizations, foundations, and corporations that are engaged in K-12 workforce development.

External links

National Competition

Regional Competitions

Hub websites

Not a complete list of hubs, as not all hubs have websites. Also note that the cities given as hub locations only denote the location of the actual competition. Each hub draws schools from a specific geographic region (e.g. specific counties) -- any school in that region is eligible to compete in the said hubs.

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