Look out, C-3PO and R2-D2 — the Arkadelphia High School BEST Robotics Team could be on its way to creating the next famous, sidekick robots, if the team can hang with other robotics teams from around the nation.
The team and the school’s engineering design class, sponsored by teacher Bud McMillion, earned first place honors recently at the 2009 BEST Robotics Hot Springs Hub competition.
Of the five awards given at the competition, the AHS team won BEST awards in the areas of Project Engineering Notebook, oral presentation, and also won the sportsmanship award and the Founders Award for Creative Design. They placed fourth in the robot performance category.
McMillion’s design class teaches a total of 17 students how to use Autodesk, a software program used in the design and building of 2D and 3D media. In the class, students use Autodesk to build their model on a computer before it is put into a physical state.
At the competition, professors from UALR asked the five teammates (the others in the class were busy with athletics or band performances), which were split into groups, about the design of their robot and how it worked. “It was the mere fact that they worked so well as a team” that landed them their honors, said Nancy Mortensen, coordinator of the AHS Gifted and Talented program.
Their robot, though it had some “issues” with its signals being crossed (hey, even Threepio had some glitches at first), was capable of scooping up tennis and racquet balls and rotate 360 degrees. Students also pre-programed the robot to move smoothly left and right and all other angles. Mortensen said students will be working on the robot between now and the competition to work out the kinks in the signaling problems.
Students from Arkadelphia and other schools met at a “hub” site before the recent competition. There, each team was given identical kits of equipment like motors, remote-control units, batteries and the raw materials they used to build the robot. Their robot weighed less than 24 pounds and could fit inside a 24-inch cube. No other materials could be used on the robot other than what was given to the team.
The competition qualifies them to compete Dec. 4-5 in Fort Smith at the Frontier Trails Best Championship, where the team will compete with other robotics teams throughout the Midwest, from as far north as South Dakota and as far west as Kansas. A total of about 40 teams will be competing there. There are three regional championships in the nation.
Local team sponsors include Hitco Carbon Composites, Arkadelphia Public School District, Arkadelphia Schools Gifted and Talented Department and APSD Career Education.
The Robotics Team and engineering design class have been a part of the school’s extracurricular activities and electives for less than a decade.
BEST Robotics, Inc., is a non-profit, volunteer organization based in Dallas, and began in 1993 with 14 competing schools and 221 students. Today, BEST has more than 700 middle and high schools and 10,000 students participating each fall.