Structure
Currently, BEST has hubs across the country. There are approximately 10,000 students, 800+ teams, 35 hubs in 15 states, and 3 regionals. Any school may start a team; there is no cost to participate. The hubs rely on local financial support from businesses and universities. Anyone can start a new hub serving a minimum of eight teams. On average, the cost for the first year of running a hub with 24 teams is $28,000.
Based on the task for the year, each team is given a parts list and kit of parts which they use to construct a robot. This kit includes parts such as wood and PVC, along with the RC components necessary to control the robot. However, not every item on the parts list is supplied by BEST and some must be obtained by the team. Items not on the list are not allowed, and the robot will be checked prior to competition for illegal items. Teams are given six weeks from kickoff to design and build the robot and finish other competition tasks, such as writing an engineering notebook about their design and construction process.
The final robot must fit in a 2 foot cube at the beginning of each round of competition. The robot must also weigh under 24 pounds. Once a round has started, the robot can expand beyond the 2 foot cube via retractable arms, etc.
The game task is different each year, but historically the robot has often needed an arm with different grabbing abilities. One year the game centered on team work to try to get students to work together. The winning teams from local competition sites, or hubs, advance to regional championship sites after the local competition has ended.
Read more about this topic: BEST Robotics
Famous quotes containing the word structure:
“One theme links together these new proposals for family policy—the idea that the family is exceedingly durable. Changes in structure and function and individual roles are not to be confused with the collapse of the family. Families remain more important in the lives of children than other institutions. Family ties are stronger and more vital than many of us imagine in the perennial atmosphere of crisis surrounding the subject.”
—Joseph Featherstone (20th century)
“What is the most rigorous law of our being? Growth. No smallest atom of our moral, mental, or physical structure can stand still a year. It grows—it must grow; nothing can prevent it.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“When a house is tottering to its fall,
The strain lies heaviest on the weakest part,
One tiny crack throughout the structure spreads,
And its own weight soon brings it toppling down.”
—Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso)