People of all ages gathered in Allen Arena this morning for the annual Music City Boosting Engineering, Science and Technology, or BEST, robotics competition kick-off event.

The event is sponsored by NISSAN and Lipscomb University’s Raymond B. Jones College of Engineering.

Seventeen teams are expecting to participate this year, including three rookie teams hoping to make their mark.

BEST is a national, six-week competition held each fall in which middle and high schools design robots to perform tasks specific to the playing field. These tasks change every year.

While teachers and parents supervise the building process, students must assemble the robots on their own using the parts provided in their kits. The teams will return to the field to compete with their robots on October 25th.

Competition day involves over 70 volunteers who help referee and judge. Not only does each team have the chance to impress judges with the abilities of their robots, but also with the exhibits that will be set up around the arena. Each team will be judged on their engineering notebook, marketing presentation, team exhibit and interviews, spirit and sportsmanship and robot performance.

The over-all competition process provides a unique opportunity for young students across the country to practice their engineering skills. This year, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) expressed interest in the program. The TVA is also sponsoring this year’s teams in Music City by awarding each team $100 in order to aid in the robot construction process.

“I’ve done this since 6th grade,” Chloe, now an 8th grader at Cannon County High School, said. “I do engineering!”

Shawn Williams, the Plant Manager of Car Production at NISSAN in Nashville, spoke for a moment about NISSAN’s investment in the STEM program that so many of these students are a part of as well as why it is important.

“If you look across the street from the NISSAN plant in Smyrna, you’ll see a $35,000,000 facility where NISSAN has partnered with the state of Tennessee to basically bring STEM jobs into the state to train people on things like robotics and mechatronics,” Williams said. “We need those jobs. We need them now and we need them in the future.”

Michael Colletti began the BEST competition presentation with a rather sad announcement for long-time competition participants. After serving as the hub director of Music City’s BEST robotics competition for the past 10 years, Colletti is stepping down in order to accept a job position in Maryland. He was still very excited to explain the challenges on this year’s playing field.

Small family farms, such as BLT Farms Inc., are facing the challenge of increasing their productivity in order to compete with larger corporate farms. As a result, they requested a robot design from BEST that can efficiently perform farm activities in less time at a lesser cost. This year’s theme, “Bet the Farm,” will require the robots to plant and harvest corn, hydroponic lettuce and tomatoes, corral and secure loose pigs and maintain a water valve.

Competition day generally consists of five to eight matches lasting three minutes each in which four teams compete. Points are awarded for the successful completion of tasks. Since various items on the field this year will be available to all teams, there will be more pressure to claim as many as possible in the allotted time period.

Team spirit is just as important on competition day as the robots, exhibits and engineering notebooks. In the past, teams have brought along pep bands, cheerleaders and mascots in order to demonstrate their enthusiasm.

“There is more team spirit and cheerleading going on during game day than there’s ever been in any other event in this arena,” Colletti said.

There is no shortage of awards for robots on competition day. In addition to the BEST award given to the overall winner, teams also receive awards for the most photogenic machine, best rookie team, best T-shirt design and many more. While many teams will have the chance to receive an award, only the top three will qualify to advance to the regionals at a later date this fall.

For more information on the Music City BEST robotics competition visit http://www.bestinc.org/ or email Jenni Jones at jenni.jones@lipscomb.edu.

Photo by Ben Davis.

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