Middle and high school students from throughout the tri-state region and as far away as Pennsylvania will soon converge in Fargo to determine whose robot is best. NDSU is scheduled to host the Northern Plains BEST Robotics regional championship Dec. 4-6 at the Fargo Civic Center.
Teams from across the country competing in this year’s robotics challenge were given six weeks to design and built a robot to compete against other schools. A total of 36 teams advanced from local competitions and earned a spot to compete in the regional championship in Fargo.
The competition is free and open to the public on Saturday, Dec. 6, at the Fargo Civic Center. The opening ceremony is scheduled for 8:30 a.m. Robot matches are from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. with an awards ceremony at 4 p.m.
A live stream of the event will be available at https://newlondonspicer.eduvision.tv.
The theme of this year’s competition, Blade Runner, challenges teams to design a vehicle capable of transporting and maneuvering wind turbines of extreme length and weight to an assembly site without negatively affecting America’s transportation system. The vehicle will then construct the wind turbines once it delivers the components to an assembly site.
The advancing teams are coming from one of eight local competition sites including Fargo and Dickinson, North Dakota; Bowling Green, Ohio; Brookings, South Dakota; New London, Minnesota; and DuBois and Grove City, Pennsylvania. NDSU’s College of Engineering hosted the Bison BEST Robotics Competition Oct. 31 and Nov. 1.
Teams advancing to the regional championship either had the top-performing robot in their local competition or won the BEST Award, which includes the delivery of a marketing presentation, the writing of a project engineering notebook, design of a team exhibit, and a spirit and sportsmanship component.
More than 160 area volunteers, consisting of business professionals and NDSU students and faculty, are helping to manage the event. During the past eight years, the BEST Robotics program in the tri-state area has grown to more than 60 teams, and approximately 1,200 students engaged in the program this year.
BEST stands for boosting engineering, science and technology. Its mission is to inspire middle school and high school students to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics through participation in a sports-like science and engineering-based robotics competition.
For more information about the competition, contact Holly Erickson at 701-371-0795 or holly.erickson@ndsu.edu or visit www.ndsu.edu/coe/k_12_outreach/best_robotics.
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