Anna Boulware (right) cheers on her Seaside Neighborhood School schoolmates at the 9th Annual BEST Robotics 2016 competition. Photos courtesy Seaside Neighborhood School
Seaside Neighborhood School is a winner. A team of 80 middle school students from Seaside Neighborhood School ventured to the University of West Florida in Pensacola, Fla., on Saturday, Oct. 29 to compete for the Emerald Coast Hub in the 9th Annual BEST (Boosting Engineering, Science and Technology) Robotics Competition.
Last year, the competition expanded to include 23 schools from all five counties in the Emerald Coast region. The theme of the year’s competition was “Bet The Farm.” Teams had 42 days to build a robot, documenting the engineering process along the way. The robot was expected to be able to harvest and deliver corn, turn on a water valve to keep the crops hydrated, harvest tomatoes and lettuce and deliver them to a farmers market stand, corral pigs and feed them.
Seaside Neighborhood School earned four awards: 2nd place, BEST Award; 1st place, Marketing Presentation and 2nd place, T-shirt Design and 6th place overall Robot.
This success qualified Seaside to advance to South’s BEST Robotics regional competition held at Auburn University Dec. 2-4. The team competed against 58 teams from 16 hubs from the Southeast to win 2nd place for Game Teamwear design and made the finals for the spirited Dance Off.
BEST Robotics Inc. (BRI) is a non-profit, volunteer-based organization whose mission to engage and excite students about engineering, science, and technology as well as inspire them to pursue careers in these fields.
Through participation in this project-based STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) program, students learn to analyze and solve problems utilizing the Engineering Design Process, which helps them develop technological literacy skills. It is these skills that industry seeks in its workforce.
Each competing team is evaluated in a number of categories including robot design, performance, aesthetic, team spirit, sportsmanship, marketing and presentation.
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