The annual Boosting Engineering Science Technology robotics competition will be held this Saturday at McCarthy Gymnasium. The program enables students from 6th to 12th grade to work together as engineers to create a robot that will complete a task.
Eric Heiselt, Director of Educational Outreach and Support Programs and Director of BEST, said the BEST program is a good way to see the best Mississippi has to offer.
For the competition, each team is assigned the same task and given two sets of gadgets and gizmos from which to build the robots, said Heiselt. The tools include materials such as PVC pipe, plywood, screws and other miscellaneous objects. Each team has six weeks to build its robot.
In previous years, teams have built airplanes and created octane fuel. This year, they will produce a robot using engineering that will reduce as much waste as possible. Teams will be given the scenario that a synthetic item has been recalled and they must create a robot that will detect the recalled items and remove them from the rest of the items on a production line.
Each robot is controlled by two students: a driver and a spotter. The  spotter instructs the driver on where to drive.
Heiselt said another aspect of the competition involves booths set up by other students who attempt to sell the robot to win the people’s choice award. Individual team members also 3 a technical notebook in which each step of the process is recorded.
The top four teams from Mississippi go to the regional competition where 60 of the best teams compete. From these 60, only four are chosen to go to nationals.
Angela Johnson, coach for the Techno Team from Hollandale, Miss., said this is the first year a school from the area will compete, and the group are very excited.
“This is a learning experience. We are very excited about it,” Johnson said. “It complements a lot of what we are doing in our STEM [Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics] program.”
The Bagley College of Engineering recently hosted a math and science family fun night for the Hollandale group, where the parents were shown practical ways to support the program by doing simple tasks at home. Johnson said she greatly appreciates their relationship with the College of Engineering at MSU.
The Starkville Christian School CougarBots Robotics Team, led by Dale Jordan, came in fourth place and won the BEST website award in 2009. This will be the 10-member team’s second year to participate in the state competition, and they are ready to compete, Jordan said.
“The SCS CougarBots have a winning attitude and are much more prepared for this year’s competition, thanks to their hard work and the support of all the parents and mentors. We are thankful to the Mississippi State University Bagley College of Engineering for presenting the BEST program to area schools,” Jordan said. “I believe some of the SCS CougarBots will be part of the next generation of engineers thanks to the BEST program.”
The competition begins at 9 a.m. with the final heats starting at 1 p.m. in McCarthy Gym. Heiselt said he encourages all students to come by and experience for themselves the sport-like feel of the competition.