Music City BEST competition creates sports-like opportunity for local students and future engineers
Lacey Klotz |
Nearly 400 students are expected to participate in Lipscomb University and Nissan North America’s annual robotics bonanza: Music City BEST (Boosting Engineering, Science and Technology) competition on Saturday, Oct. 31.
BEST is a national six-week robotics competition held each fall. The competition is open to all middle and high schools including public, private and home school groups and is designed to interest youth in possible engineering careers.
This year, 16 Middle Tennessee schools, including Lipscomb Academy, are participating in the competition. They will be required to build their team robots, designed to carry out a specific task, and will put them to the test competing against one another from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. in Allen Arena.
Anyone interested in robots or engineering is invited to view the competition, which traditionally includes mascots, cheerleaders, pep bands and plenty of exciting engineering exhibits.
Teachers, parents and engineer volunteers will serve as mentors for the teams over the six weeks of preparation; however, the entire six-week process of building, designing and presenting their robot is entirely up to the students.
Michael Colletti, adjunct engineering professor at Lipscomb and product design engineer at Hayward Pool Products, has served as the hub director of the Music City BEST competition for the past 10 years. He explains how unique and valuable this competition is for local schools and explained how some teachers participating in the Music City BEST have incorporated the six-week competition into their class curriculum.
“In BEST Robotics, students are able to apply the math, science and technology they learn in the classroom into the design and construction of their robot through teamwork and real-life problem solving. Because of this, most teachers use this competition as a class project,” said Colletti. “This program is unique in preparing future engineers by also showing them that successful product development includes being able to document your work through a project notebook and being able to sell your design through a marketing presentation and a team exhibit.”
Nissan North America Inc. is committed to supporting education, especially programs that focus on science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) and provides all funding for the competition which covers all materials needed to build the robots for all schools participating.
Rick Clonan, maintenance technologist at the Nissan plant in Smyrna, Tenn., explained how the BEST program is a great fit for the industry by engaging students in problem solving and critical thinking that could one day lead them to careers in engineering.
“Through the BEST competition’s hands-on experience, these students are learning processes that our engineers use every day,” said Clonan. “They’re learning from experienced professionals who give them tools they need to understand math and science. It’s also a fun way to learn, which is great for the students and the adults who work with them.”
Clonan has also worked for three years as a mentor for Thurman Francis Arts Academy. The team has participated in BEST for five years and involves public middle school students from throughout Rutherford County as well as home school students. Thurman Francis Arts Academy will be back this year to compete in the 2015 Music City BEST competition.
Nearly 70 volunteers will also serve in the competition as judges, referees and course builders.
Lipscomb’s Associate Dean of Engineering, Fort Gwinn, will judge each teams project notebooks in the days leading up to the competition and will tally each judges’ score sheet on the day-of the competition to crown the 2015 BEST Award winner.
Gwinn explained how this competition provides a unique opportunity to expose students to a creative engineering process and engage them in a sports-like activity that is both educational and fun.
“As educators, we need to be doing more to get kids interested in science and engineering-that's what BEST is all about,” said Gwinn. “Students between the ages of 12 and 18 are engaged in the engineering process all the way from concept to construction. Each team of students designs and constructs a robot from simple everyday items combined with a little bit of high tech electronics to accomplish a specific challenge.
“Then, on competition day, all of Allen Arena is electrified with the enthusiasm of a hundred future engineers, pep bands and cheerleaders as the teams compete to see which is the best. Honestly, its like ‘sports for geeks.’ I can't think of a better way to light a fire in the minds of these kids.”
With this year’s mining theme, students will bring their finished robots to the arena on Oct. 31 to compete in the Pay Dirt game where their robots will “repair a damaged mine” by installing a replacement air filter (foam board) and a new section of a water pipe (PVC pipe) on the game field. Teams will also gather valuable commodities and deliver them to bins. Points are based on how much of the mine is repaired and how many of the commodities are retrieved.
The 16 teams will compete in seven, three-minute matches during the initial rounds. Once the top eight teams are determined, they will move on to the semifinals and the top four from that competition will continue on to the finals to determine the champion.
There is one robot per team and each team is allowed one driver and one spotter in each match to guide their radio-frequency-controlled robot.
Aside from the Pay Dirt game, teams will also be judged on their project notebooks, marketing presentations, team exhibits and interviews, and finally their team spirit and sportsmanship during the competition.
Although several awards will be given including place awards for individual competitions and awards for design, construction, creativity, sportsmanship and spirit awards, only three teams will move on to the regional competition in December at Auburn University. These teams are the winners of the first and second place BEST Award and the first place Robot Competition Award.
Last year’s BEST Award winner, Central Magnet School from Murfreesboro, Tenn., will be back this year as well as the Robot Competition Award winner, Merrol Hyde Magnet School from Hendersonville, Tenn.
BEST has hubs across the country and engages more than 9,000 students, more than 600+ teams, with 28 hubs and three regional competitions.
For more information on the Music City BEST competition please visit: http://www.bestinc.org/.
2015 schools participating include:
- Lipscomb Academy – Nashville, Tenn.
- Dickson Area Robotics – Burns, Tenn.
- Discovery School – Murfreesboro, Tenn.
- Oakland Middle School – Murfreesboro, Tenn.
- Brentwood Middle/High School – Brentwood, Tenn.
- Central Magnet School – Murfreesboro, Tenn.
- Merrol Hyde Magnet School – Hendersonville, Tenn.
- Montgomery Bell Academy – Nashville, Tenn.
- Thurman Francis Arts Academy – Smyrna, Tenn.
- Cannon County High School – Woodbury, Tenn.
- Evangelical Christian School – Cordova, Tenn.
- West End Middle School – Nashville, Tenn.
- Riverside Association of Robotics and Engineering (R.A.R.E) – Fayetteville, Tenn.
- Montgomery County Area Robotics Intelligence Operations (M.A.R.I.O) – Clarksville, Tenn.
- Signal Mountain Middle/High School – Signal Mountain, Tenn.
- Stewarts Creek Middle School – Smyrna, Tenn.