Robots all the rage at Music City BEST
Janel Shoun |
Ten groups of Middle Tennessee high schoolers will be headed to Mars on Saturday, Oct. 27, and they are inviting local kids to climb aboard and go along with them by attending the second annual Music City BEST Robotics Competition, held in Allen Arena on the Lipscomb University campus in Green Hills.
The student-built robots will begin rolling with their cargo of bottles and cans at 10 a.m. and continue to around 3 p.m., with a lunch break at 12:30 p.m. This event is free and open to the public.
All teams also have the option to try out their robot prototypes before the general public on Saturday, Oct. 20, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., at Cool Springs Galleria in Franklin, just outside the JC Penney entrance.
Schools expected to participate this year are:
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David Lipscomb Campus School, Nashville
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Lewis County High School, Hohenwald
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MaFadden Middle School, Murfreesboro
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Mt. Juliet High School, Mt. Juliet;
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Oak Ridge High School, Oak Ridge
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Ravenwood High School, Brentwood
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West End Middle School, Nashville;
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Rooster Robotics Institute home school, Lewisburg
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Jennifer Almon’s home school, Bellevue
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Upton home school, Watertown.
Music City BEST challenges middle and high school students to build their own robots to complete a designated task, using specific materials supplied to them six weeks before the competition – such as plywood, PVC pipe, duct tape, bicycle inner tubes, Velcro and various polymer machine components.
The robot that earns the most points by moving the most “supplies” to the Martian base wins the overall competition, but the robots can also be awarded honors such as Most Photogenic, Most Robust, Most Elegant, the BEST Award, and the Blood, Guts and Duct Tape Award for the team with few points, but lots of guts and spirit.
Last year David Lipscomb Campus School, won the most points in the competition and was awarded with the Most Robust Machine Award. The budding engineers went on to compete in the South’s BEST competition in Auburn, Ala., in December 2006 and earned the ninth most points out of 44 teams. The team ranked 17th in the overall competition, which also includes an oral presentation, display notebook and sportsmanship.
BEST (Boosting Engineering, Science and Technology) is a 15-year-old, nationwide program involving more than 600 schools, representing 11,000 students. The top two teams in the Music City competition will proceed to the South’s BEST competition in Auburn, Ala., in December, when more than 40 teams duke it out for top honors in the region.
“It’s not really about robotics, even though the kids think it is,” said George Blanks, vice president of the BEST board of directors and director of K-12 outreach for Auburn University, a long-time BEST sponsor. “Really they learn about problem-solving, teamwork, leadership and consensus development. It’s teaching kids not just the engineering process, but how to solve a problem.”
“We decided to bring the BEST competition to Tennessee because it’s a program that not only teaches students skills they can use for a lifetime, but it does it in a fun, interactive way,” said Ben Hutchinson, dean of Lipscomb’s College of Natural and Applied Sciences, which includes the school of engineering.
“The program is unusual among student engineering programs because it actually requires the students themselves to design and build the robots, and it involves students in a variety of ways from designing the robots to organizing a pep rally before the competition,” Hutchinson said. “It is also free to the schools, which allows many schools to participate who otherwise wouldn’t have the opportunity.”
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