By MEGAN GARNETT
Student Reporter
High school and middle school students will come to Alva to compete in the Heartland BEST robotics competition on October 31.
“BEST stands for Boosting Engineering Science and Technology,” explained Steven Maier, who has a PhD in science education. Maier is the director of the Heartland BEST Robotics and has been involved in the competition since 2002. “BEST is an engineering competition that is high energy and a lot of fun”, he said.
Maier has been at Northwestern Oklahoma State University since 1998.He teaches several courses including physics and science education along with other general science education courses. When asked, he said he has always been interested in robotics, as well as Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, or STEM.
BEST’s event, called Game Day, occurs annually, and takes place on Halloween this year. It starts at 10a.m. and lasts approximately five hours.
Each year, the competition costs around $20,000 to host. The high cost is due to the fact that the event is entirely free to the schools who are involved. Materials for each team’s robotics kit are provided without any charge.
Jenny Sattler, who has a PhD in Biomedical Physics, is in charge of the kits. She explained that all teams are required to use a kit which is provided for them. “Everybody gets an identical kit to build their robot,” Sattler said, explaining that an identical kit provides a level playing field for all participating teams.
The competition is open to the public. Maier said, “We’d like to put the word out so people can come and see what’s going on. It’s a pretty exciting event. We’ll have teams that bring their own bands, pep bands, mascots, and cheerleaders. It’s basically a regional athletic championship, except it’s not athletic: it’s academic. We’ve got robots competing.”
This year, teams from Oklahoma and Kansas will participate in the competition. Perry, Pratt and OKC homeschool are among the groups who will compete. Alva has not had a team in the past, though this year Alva and Freedom, Oklahoma will form a combined team.
There are two categories that teams can compete in. Maier said, “They can compete in the Game Day competition, which is basically just how well the robot performs. The more prestigious thing they can compete in is called the BEST award.” Teams are judged on Game performance, table display, oral presentation, spirit and sportsmanship and their notebooks. All five criteria are scored and count toward the BEST award.
“If they win the BEST award, which is the most prestigious, then they get a bid to go to the regional competition which is in Fort Smith Arkansas,” Maier explained. Students striving for the BEST award are required to give an oral presentation on the 30th. They also have to compete in a table display which is a presentation of their product. “The robots that they are competing with are meant to be marketable products based on the challenge that was given to them,” Maier said.
Members of Northwestern’s faculty, community members and some Northwestern student volunteers will help to judge and run the competition. Among the students helping are Willow Gahr, a physics minor who has helped judge for the past two years and Francis Declan, who is taking a service learning course built around the event.
Maier also talked about the talent and ability of high school and middle school students involved. He said, “I think it’s almost a lesson for college students…It’s amazing to see what middle school and high school students come up with. We worked on a demonstration robot and I guarantee you their designs are gonna outperform our robot.”
Sattler added, “It’s a surprise to us too, I mean, some of the ideas they come with, it’s like whoa, I would have never thought of that!”
Maier expressed that they hoped to continue to see the competition as a way to recruit and get people involved in STEM. He went on to say, “Even if you don’t know robotics, there are a lot of things we can use volunteers for.”