Holly Pond High School freshman Jordan Dover was excited when she had the opportunity to get involved with the Boosting Engineering, Science and Technology (BEST) robotics competition.

“It’s very exciting,” she said. “I find it interesting because you learn about technology and advanced science.”

Dover hopes learning about robots now will prepare her for a future career.

Wallace State Community College was the host for the North Alabama BEST Robotics Competition on Saturday, where some of the brightest young minds gathered for a competition between teams of robot creators.

The contest originated in 1993. It combines engineering skills in a game-type setting for students.

Thirteen schools participated in the event.

It is not only good for the school and students, but it is also a way to show industries what skills students are learning.

“This allows us to be able to provide for both our community and industry. There’s an opportunity to showcase students to potential employers,” said Dr. Phiilp Cleveland, dean of technical education at Wallace State. “It’s a major integration for students to learn hands-on skills.”

Each participating team was provided a robotics kit on the BEST kickoff day in September, and they had six weeks to design, develop and test a robot that can outperform their opponents.

“It teaches you how a company runs, and you have to learn how to work as a team,” said Jessica Breedlove, a freshman at Holly Pond High School.

During the competition, students experience the same problems, challenges and breakthroughs that an engineering team encounters when it takes a product to market.

“As you can see, the enthusiasm is just great,” Cleveland said.

Not only were the robot teams there, but there were cheerleaders, mascots and pep bands.

“We’ve got great enthusiasm with our spirit band being here,” Dover said.

The teams were judged on design and construction, an oral presentation, a table display and presentation interview.

Isaac Bagwell from Holly Pond High School hopes learning about robots will further his career in the future.

“It’s fun and it will help me when I go to college,” said Bagwell, a 10th grader.

Bagwell hopes to major in mechanical or computer engineering.

Fairview middle-schooler Brittany Trammell said it was just fun being a part of the competition.

“The fact of engineering a robot and them competing is just fun,” she said. “I think it will help me very much in the future.”

Trammell enjoyed building the robot, but definitely liked the competition better.

“It’s just very exciting getting to compete,” she said.

The top three teams will advance to the South’s BEST regional competition at Auburn University in December.

The BEST awards include: the Project Engineering Notebook, Oral Presentation, Educational Display, Judges Interview, Spirit and Sportsmanship and Robot Performance. The BEST Award is considered the highest achievement any team in the competition can accomplish.

The BEST robotics competition was started in 1993 by two engineers, Ted Mahler and Steve Marum, who worked for Texas Instruments. The initial competition had 14 schools and 221 students participate. Last fall, the event attracted 650 schools and 10,000 students.

Schools that participated in the event were Arab High School, Marshall Technical School, Walker County Center of Technology, Winston County Technical Center, Holly Pond High School, Guntersville High School, Blount County Center of Technology, Coosa Christian School, Hartselle Middle School, Fairview Middle School, Cullman Christian School, Locust Fork High School and Cullman Middle School.

 

* Tiffany Green can be reached by e-mail at tgreen@cullmantimes.com or by telephone at 734-2131, ext. 220.