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October 29, 2008

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

Over 1000 middle and high school students, teachers and parents representing 18 schools from across north Alabama and Southern Tennessee will descend on the Decatur campus of Calhoun Community College on Saturday, November 1, 2008, for this year’s Tennessee Valley (TVB) BEST (Boosting Engineering Science and Technology) robotics competition. Presented by Auburn University and Calhoun, the competition will be held from 9:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. in Calhoun’s Kelley Gym.

Calhoun was selected last year as one of three sites around the state to host the competition. During Saturday’s event, teams will compete on several courses and in a number of events with robots built by each team. 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 had six weeks to design a functioning machine that can perform certain specific tasks in three minutes during the actual competition at Calhoun.

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.

“There is no entry fee for schools and no limit to the number of students who may participate,” said Mitchell. “All equipment and materials used to build and run the robots are provided by Toyota Manufacturing, which has been the program’s sponsor since it began in 2003,” she added.

“We started the BEST program at CityAuburn in 2001 to help address the critical shortage of engineers and scientists the country-regionplaceU.S. is now facing,” says Dr. George Blanks, Director of K-12 Engineering Outreach for the Samuel Ginn College of Engineering at Auburn University. “StateplaceAlabama, 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.

Austin High School in Decatur has been fielding a BEST team since 2002. This year, the teams from Austin and Decatur High Schools joind to form a single team. Susan Haddock, math teacher and the team sponsor, has seen the best come out in her students as a result of the competition. “Over the past few years, more than 30 students from our robotics team have gone on to enroll in engineering fields of study. When they entered college, they knew they’d selected the correct field of study for them not because someone told them they would be a good engineer, but because they’d been involved in BEST.” Other area schools scheduled to participate in this year’s competition include the Academy for Science and Foreign Language (Huntsville), Albertville City High School (Boaz), Athens Bible School, Athens Middle School. Bob Jones High School (Madison), Buckhorn High School (New Market), Eva Middle School, Excalibur and The Way Home Schools (Madison), Faith Christian Academy (Athens), Guntersville Middle School, Holly Pond High School, Madison/Life Christian Academies (Huntsville), Oak Park Middle School (Decatur), Priceville High School, Redstone Robotics (Huntsville), Riverside Christian Academy (Fayetteville, TN), Sparkman High School (Harvest).

Those interested can learn more about BEST by going to www.bestinc.org . For more information about this weekend’s competition, contact Dr. Sue Mitchell at 256/306-2655 or sue@calhoun.edu, or contact Dr. George Blanks at 334/844-5759 or blankgw@eng.auburn.edu.

Coverage of this release:

• 'Just Plane Crazy' has students at their BEST (Tennessee Valley BEST Robotics competition at Calhoun), The Decatur Daily, Friday, October 31, 2008 issue, p.C1

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

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