Organization and BEST Robotics

[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)