The NDSU College of Engineering is scheduled to kick off the 2018 Bison BEST Robotics Competition on Sept. 8. The six-week competition will conclude Oct. 19-20 with game day at the Bentson Bunker Fieldhouse. This is the 12th year NDSU has hosted the event.

BEST, which stands for Boosting Engineering, Science and Technology, offers hands-on, real world, engineering-based experience to middle and high school students. The mission of BEST Robotics is to inspire students to pursue careers in engineering, science, technology and math through participation in a sports-like science and engineering-based robotics competition.

Students from 13 area schools are competing in Bison BEST in 2018. This year’s theme, Current Events, is a recycling based game. At the kick-off event, each school receives an identical kit of equipment and parts and a set of game rules. On game day, the robots earn the teams points by carrying out a series of activities on the game field. The competition is free for schools to participate.

BEST Robotics consists of two parallel competitions. The first is a robotics game in which four teams compete at once in a series of three-minute matches.

The other competition is for the BEST Award, which includes the delivery of a marketing presentation, writing of a project engineering notebook, design of a team exhibit and a spirit and sportsmanship component.

Engineers and other technical professionals from local industries serve as team mentors who advise and guide students through the design and construction of their robot.

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