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October 2, 2007

Calhoun to Host BEST
(Boosting Engineering Science and Technology)
Robotics Competition this Week

Over 1000 middle and high school students, teachers and parents representing 18 schools from across north Alabama and Southern Tennessee will descend on the campus of Calhoun Community College this Saturday, Oct. 6, 2007,  to participate in  the Tennessee Valley (TVB)  BEST (Boosting Engineering Science and Technology) robotics competition.  Presented by Calhoun and Auburn University, the competition kicks off on Saturday at 1:00 pm in Calhoun’s Kelley Gym on the college’s Decatur campus.

Calhoun was selected as one of three sites around the state to host this year’s competition.  Winners from the three state competitions will compete at the “South’s BEST” Robotics competition at Auburn University in November.

This year’s game theme  is “2021: A Robot Odyssey” and is based upon NASA’s Mars Rover Project.   According to local competition coordinator Dr. Sue Mitchell, a member of Calhoun’s Computer Information Systems faculty, the BEST competition has been described as being like a basketball game, chess match and science fair all rolled into one day, with cheerleaders, mascots, pep bands, and wildly cheering adults and kids mixed in.

Kits for building the competition robots consist of plywood and a box filled with items such as PVC pipe, screws and other hardware, an irrigation valve cover, piano wire, an aluminum paint grid, a bicycle inner tube, and a micro-energy chain system.  Teams have had six weeks to design a functioning machine which will perform certain specific tasks in three minutes during
Saturday’s competition.

“All equipment and materials used to build and run the robots have  been provided by Toyota Manufacturing, which has been the program’s sponsor since it began in 2003,” Mitchell said.  In addition to Calhoun, Auburn, and Toyota, the Decatur Daybreak Rotary Club also serves as sponsor for the event.

“We started the BEST program at Auburn in 2001 to help address the critical shortage of engineers and scientists the U.S. is now facing,” says George Blanks, Director of K-12 Engineering Outreach for the Samuel Ginn College of Engineering. “Alabama, like other states, is simply not educating enough engineers to fill jobs that will be open as the baby boomer generation retires. In addition, many new technology-based industries are locating in the state. To ensure economic prosperity into the future, the state must grow its technologically literate workforce.

“Industry sees BEST as an ideal workforce development program because in the process of building their robot, students learn to identify and analyze design problems, brainstorm solutions for them, and build and test their designs, all in a team-building setting. They also learn that this process is a lot of fun. That’s the kind of workforce industry needs: people who understand technology and know how to use it to solve problems,” Blanks added.

Area schools  participating in this year’s competition are Albertville City (Boaz); Athens Bible School; Austin High School (Decatur); Bob Jones High School (Madison); Decatur High School; Gadsden High School; Holly Pond High School; Homewood High School (Hoover); Hoover Freshman Center; Hoover High School; Mountain Brook Junior High (Birmingham); NCLC Robotics (Huntsville); Oak Mountain High School (Birmingham); Priceville High School; Riverside Christian Academy (Fayetteville, TN); Spain Park High School (Birmingham); Sparkman High School (Madison); and Vestavia Hills High School (Alabaster).

BEST (Boosting Engineering, Science and Technology) is a national, non-profit, volunteer organization whose mission is to inspire students to pursue careers in engineering, science, and technology through participation in a sports-like, science- and engineering-based robotics competition.  BEST started in 1993 in Dallas, Texas and with over 34 locations and 10,000 student competitors, has grown to be the second largest robotics competition in the nation.  Visit the BEST website.

Coverage of this release:

• Austin, Priceville win BEST competition at Calhoun, The Decatur Daily, Tuesday, October 9, 2007 issue, p. B2
• Keeping up with 'The Jones' (robotics photo and caption), The Huntsville Times, Sunday , October 7, 2007 issue, p. A17
• Seeking the BEST robot, The Decatur Daily, Sunday, October 7, 2007 issue, p. B2
• BEST battle returns to Mars: Calhoun hosts 18 high school robotic teams, The Decatur Daily, Thursday, October 4, 2007 issue, p. B1

FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT:

Janet Kincherlow-Martin
Director of Public Relations
(256) 306-2561

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