Local students go head-to-head in Music City BEST robotics competition at Lipscomb
Lacey Klotz |
More than 400 middle and high school students from 16 Middle Tennessee schools participated in the Lipscomb University, Nissan North America and Tennessee Valley Authority Music City BEST (Boosting Engineering, Science and Technology) robotics competition on Saturday, Oct. 29 in Lipscomb’s Allen Arena.
During the all-day competition, teams went head-to-head in a robotics test of wills, and three teams including Central Magnet School in Murfreesboro, Tennessee; Dickson Area Robotics in Burns, Tennessee; and Merrol Hyde Magnet School in Hendersonville, Tennessee; advanced on to the regional competition this December at Auburn University. These teams were the winners of the first and second BEST Award as well as the first place Robot Competition Award.
Throughout the six weeks of preparation for the national competition, teachers, parents and engineer volunteers served as mentors for the teams; however, the entire process of building, designing and presenting their robot has been entirely up to the students.
During this year’s game, robots automated operations on a farm. The robots planted corn seeds (golf balls) as well as harvested and delivered ripe corn (paint rollers), hydroponic tomatoes (whiffle balls) and lettuce (loofas). On this farm, pigs (small rubber toy piglets) escaped the pen and the robots had to coral and return them to the pen. Finally, the robot had to properly position a valve handle to provide the proper amount of water to the corn crops. Points were awarded based on how many seeds were planted, how many crops were harvested, how many pigs were corralled and whether the crops were properly watered.
In addition to the robotics game, teams also competed in the following areas: project notebook, marketing project, team exhibit and interviews, as well as spirit and sportsmanship.
Michael Colletti, vice president of engineering at The Whalen Company in Easton, Maryland, has served as Hub Director for Music City BEST for the past 11 years.
“Its great to see students taking the math, science and technology they learn in the classroom and applying them to a real life challenge,” said Colletti. “Students learn how to collaborate in teams to develop creative designs, participate in the hands on construction of their robot and get to see how the Engineering process works from start to finish.”
Nissan North America, an event sponsor, also held a booth at the event that featured a voltage tester on a PLC system, a drone, a thermal camera and Nissan's PlayStation game for students. Nissan also had new car and truck models on-site including the 2017 Titan Platinum Diesel and 2017 GTR premium. TVA was also an event sponsor and present at the event.
2016 school participants include:
- Lipscomb Academy – Nashville, Tennessee
- Dickson Area Robotics – Burns, Tennessee
- Discovery School – Murfreesboro, Tennessee
- Oakland Middle School – Murfreesboro, Tennessee
- Battle Ground Academy – Franklin, Tennessee
- Brentwood Middle & High School – Brentwood, Tennessee
- Central Magnet School – Murfreesboro, Tennessee
- Merrol Hyde Magnet School – Hendersonville, Tennessee
- Montgomery Bell Academy – Nashville, Tennessee
- Smyrna Robotics – Smyrna, Tennessee
- Cannon County High School – Woodbury, Tennessee
- Ensworth High School – Nashville, Tennessee
- West End Middle School – Nashville, Tennessee
- Zion Christian Academy – Columbia, Tennessee
- Riverside Association of Robotics and Engineering (R.A.R.E) – Fayetteville, Tennessee
- Stewarts Creek Middle School – Smyrna, Tennessee
BEST robotics is a nonprofit, volunteer-based 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. It began in 1993 with 14 schools and 221 students and today, has over 850 middle and high school with over 18,000 students participating.