Organization and BEST Robotics

[Cobage]

yeah, best is good for bringing up freshmen, but it's nowhere near the scale of first. If you want gears, you have to cut them yourself out of plastic. unless you have that fancy computer guided cutting equipment, it can get pretty tough. especially with a bandsaw.

[LSevcik]

Originally Posted by Cobage

yeah, best is good for bringing up freshmen, but it's nowhere near the scale of first. If you want gears, you have to cut them yourself out of plastic. unless you have that fancy computer guided cutting equipment, it can get pretty tough. especially with a bandsaw.

Here's a little more clarification on BEST. Being a Regional Director for FIRST and a Hub Director, and also have worked with teams in both programs. There are 28 hubs (local competitions ) in the BEST competition. There are several in Texas but also in Philadelphia, Kansas, Oklahoma, Florida, Arkansas, Alabama and the program is growing. Teams compete in the local hub competition and must win their way to compete in a regional event. Currently there is a regional at Auburn University and at SMU in Dallas, Texas. A third regional is due to be added.

The attraction for the BEST program for many schools is that the program is free and the robot is totally manufactured by the students. Mentors for participating teams guide the students through the build process. The program is easily accessible for many schools as it doesn't require a machine shop. The program is good for those schools that can't afford to do FIRST but still want to be part of a robotics competition.

FIRST is a much larger program and offers many more challenges for students, mentors and one must have a corporate sponsor. BEST is a very good program to prepare students for FIRST.

Both programs have something to offer for students who want to be part of a robotics program. It's up to the schools as to what works for them.

[Andrew Schuetze]

Originally Posted by LSevcik

snip

Both programs have something to offer for students who want to be part of a robotics program. It's up to the schools as to what works for them.

Thanks for chiming in Lucia and making the point that there are pros and cons to both programs and it comes down to the school as to what is the correct choice for them. In Edgewood ISD, the correct choice is to compete in both. It is a great fall activity from which I can recruit team members from. It is a bit of a problem though as I then have to deal with a bit of school spirit and competitiveness spilling over into our district FIRST team which is a multi-school team. The three campuses in the district each have a BEST team but we combine for a single district FIRST team.

Other choices for schools to consider, BotBall from NASA, why not do the underwater robot thing as the great group from Phoenix did and beat MIT

A long term goal for San Antonio, Texas is to develop the resources that Lucia and Lucien et al have done in Houston to create Houston robotics.org. They help teams in the BEST, FIRST, Botball plus FLL and even created a Lego challenge for elementary ages called EARLY.

The dollars have to be spread around much more widely but my sense is that an organization is likely to be more generous with the donations if it is going to a much larger and diverse group of students The pie gets bigger and there are more pieces to share....


APS

[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.

[funggiss]

my team 1825 does both frc and best our team name is the same in both cases Metro Homeschool Robotics

we go to the fort smith hub

[xitaqua]

BEST is also a good place to start for home school teams, specially since it is free for teams to participate, and for home school teams, it might be a challenge comming up with $6,000, specially from sponsors......

Does anyone know of a BEST hub in St. Louis ?

I seen a team in Ponca City, OK that has both FIRST/BEST, and they told me the same thing said before in this thread : Good to bring Freshment up to speed. It is mandatory for that team in OK for underclassmen to do BEST, before participating in FIRST from my understanding.....

Cheers,
Marcos.

[JaneYoung]

Originally Posted by xitaqua

Does anyone know of a BEST hub in St. Louis ?

I seen a team in Ponca City, OK that has both FIRST/BEST, and they told me the same thing said before in this thread : Good to bring Freshment up to speed. It is mandatory for that team in OK for underclassmen to do BEST, before participating in FIRST from my understanding.....

Cheers,
Marcos.

Have you checked out the BEST website?

I'm including a link from the website that provides a map. It's a good visual.
http://www.bestinc.org/MVC/HubInfo/hub_map

LASA Robotics has participated in BEST for several years. If you would like to ask any questions, I'll be happy to answer - just send me a private message.

Jane

[GarrettF2395]

My FRC team (2395 The Ninja Munkees) is actually 2 different homeschool teams (OKC Homeschool and COACH)
I'm on OKC Homeschool, other teams I know of that do FIRST are 1429 out of Galena Park TX. 932 of Tulsa OK. and 476 From Ponca OK.
All of us competed at the Frontier Trails Regional last year, as well as competing in the Oklahoma FRC Regional.

BEST teaches you things that you don't necessarily learn in FRC.
Specifically how to take very little and turn it into something you can compete with.
I'll give you an example. In FIRST, if you need a gear for a motor that raises your robots arm, you go to AndyMark, or another website, and order the part you need. In BEST if you need a gear, you have to look at your current resources and figure out what material you will use, wood, PVC, aluminum? Then you have to figure out how you will make it, and how to connect it to the motor.
Im not saying you can't learn these things in FRC, a lot of teams do.
But things like using very limited resources to the best of your ability, and very hands on construction are just a few ways FIRST and BEST Differ.
Also, even though BEST gets written off as easy sometimes, once you get to the regional level, it's fairly difficult to win.
My team competes in BEST for the same reasons we compete in FIRST.
To learn, to grow as a team, and to increase our experience in both engineering and building competitive robots.
I greatly encourage all FIRST teams to get involved with BEST somehow, its a great learning experience.

(Darn Paul beat me too it)

[JaneYoung]

Thank you for your kind words, Paul.

Garrett is right, BEST isn't easy but man, is it fun!

[blankgw]

I am the Executive Director of BEST Middle and High School Robotics (www.bestinc.org), a free program for schools. We license our game to organizations, colleges/universities - any group that is willing to start and sustain a "hub" (local competition site). BEST is a fall competition and many BEST schools also do FIRST - but we've never polled our 750-plus participating schools to get a count. We welcome FIRST schools/teams to participate in BEST - they can then have a year-round robotics program!

This fall we have 33 hubs in 13 states. Our long-term goal is to grow BEST across the country, particularly in communities where schools cannot afford to compete in FIRST.

George Blanks
Director of K-12 Engineering Outreach
Ginn College of Engineering
Auburn University (AL)

[xitaqua]

tanguma26,

You are right BEST Robotics is good to get teams warmed up, I have also found out that it is a good platform to teach adult mentors since you can have more employees engaged by having multiple small teams instead of one big team working on robots.

This year we have 3 teams of employees working on 3 robots, aproximatlly 15+ employees learning how to work tools such as a jigsaw to make a robot wheel.....

We had our first demo at the community a week ago :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFBIQFdsQ2M

[JaneYoung]

I've always hoped to see more teams get involved in both programs. They each provide excellent opportunities. One point that I would stress is that BEST is not FIRST and FIRST is not BEST. That would need to be fully understood and respected by teams that participate in each program.

Further thought - many teams that only compete in FRC, spend time organizing and jelling as a team during the FRC build/competition season. Competing in BEST helps with that in some ways. Not all of our students participate in BEST and not all of our students participate in FIRST, but enough do to help us identify what we need to work on and tweak as we move into the FRC season. Also, over time, we have developed into a team that is year round - spending our off season from BEST and FIRST on fundraising, outreach, and working on team organization/management. What we have to watch for is burnout. For LASA Robotics, both competitions demand the best the team has to offer in several areas, not just the robot competition. Constantly working to improve and develop is challenging, exciting, and draining. So, we watch for that and try to keep everything in perspective, setting realistic goals. Dream big yet have a respect for reality - finding that balance.

Jane

[Pjohn1959]

Originally Posted by xitaqua

Does anyone know of a BEST hub in St. Louis ?.

The closest hub is the Music City hub in Nashville, Tenn.

I seen a team in Ponca City, OK that has both FIRST/BEST, and they told me the same thing said before in this thread : Good to bring Freshment up to speed. It is mandatory for that team in OK for underclassmen to do BEST, before participating in FIRST from my understanding.....

Cheers,
Marcos.

Yes, team 476, the Wildcats, have been doing this successfully for many years...

Originally Posted by JaneYoung

LASA Robotics has participated in BEST for several years.
Jane

Only team I know of that has won a Chairman's Award and a State BEST Award. Congratulations