[kristinweiss]

My team started competing in BEST almost a decade before we started competing in FRC, and now we actually run BEST robotics in Georgia. BEST and FIRST are two very different competitions and it's very difficult to compare the two because BEST is based on giving everyone an even playing field and utilizing the parts you are given for detail driven challenges, while FIRST is based on working with your community to get funds and mentors and produce large robots to compete in less specific challenges. As someone who competed in BEST for 3 years and who was highly involved in running a BEST hub this year, I can say that BEST is a very challenging competition to run, because it is up to the individual hub to get funding and purchase the kits for all of the teams competing in your hub and to build the field that you have to buy and build from scratch. That being said, I think that BEST is a fantastic competition because it really challenges teams to get creative and it allows teams with small or no budgets to get involved with robotics without having to worry about all of the costs that programs such as FIRST require.