[Kevin Sevcik]

Yeah, I am uncertain how the BEST game is gonna go this year. I have some philosophical issues with the game design this year, but that's neither here nor there. It will almost have to be interesting.

Also, yes there are a lot of teams that do both BEST and FIRST here in Texas. I know my team is one of them.

As for BEST being a FIRST clone, that's just not right at all. Aside from both being robotics competitions, they are very different. I won't go into all the differences, but I think BEST requires more creativity than FIRST does now. In BEST, you're given a kit of parts and that is the only thing you can use. You have very limited motors, parts, and controls and you have to make it work. The size and weight restricitons a much smaller, as well. In addition, BEST has a different system for reaching teams.

As to FIRST being best.... I don't think either is best or better, to be grammatically correct. They're different. FIRST has more engineer involvement and you get to work with more materials and big machines and fancy controls. BEST is much smaller, but the students are required to build the robots themselves. I don't want to start that holy war, but there are things to be said for that. The biggest difference is that BEST has a much greater potential for reaching schools. This is because BEST is effectively free to teams. You put down a deposit for the motors and control system, and you get it back when you return it. BEST has around 700 teams currently, so yeah. I think you can make a case for both programs, and they both are very important. And you can't really argue with a robotics competition that's free for teams, can you? You can reach a lot more students that way, really.