[Kevin Sevcik]

To answer the original question of the thread, Team 57 actually has multiple BEST teams. We fundraise enough to buy extra kits and controls, and then we have multiple teams build robots and compete against each other. The winning sub-team represents the school at the actual competition. We use the BEST teams to recruit and prep rookies for FIRST and to keep our current FIRST students sharp.

Off the subject, BEST is quite definitely more restricted than FIRST. 2 foot cube, 24 lbs, limited materials, limited motors, limited channels. This makes it a rather large challenge. It's not easy doing things within those limitations, so it forces you to think creatively and be careful how you use your materials. You still see some really neat robots. One of the coolest robots I've ever seen was a BEST bot that drove around horizontally for part of the match, then used a cliff on the field to flip itself forward to help it deliver the balls it collected.