MUSCLE SHOALS– Saturday, October 10, 2015, 9:30 a.m. – 5 p.m. Northwest-Shoals Community College (NW-SCC) and the Shoals Chamber of Commerce will host 24 schools at the 2015 Northwest Alabama BEST (Boosting Engineering, Science and Technology) Robotics Competition. The event will be held at the NW-SCC Shoals campus gymnasium and is free to the public. 
The season Kicked-Off on August 29th. Middle and high school student teams have been working on their robot design & engineering process for six weeks and are now ready to find out what their robots and drivers can accomplish in the heat of the moment. The top three winning teams will advance to South’s BEST Regional Championship at Auburn University, December 5-6, 2015.
This year, robots are built to accomplish the specific challenges of this year’s game, Pay Dirt. Each team will design a robot to accomplish various tasks in a simulated mine. As the teams extract the various ore contained in the fictitious mine, the ore’s values (point value) will change. Depending on which ore are mined, teams must adjust their mining strategies accordingly.
BEST Robotics’ long term goal strives for students to become interested in careers in science, technology, engineering and math (S.T.E.M.). This year’s game theme will not only teach these principles, but may help boost entrance into career paths surrounding aeronautical engineering, perhaps introducing some to new areas of interest.
In addition to the Robotics game challenge, the students must compile a comprehensive Project Engineering Notebook, and are encouraged to develop an entire “company” around their product. The teams have the option to compete in an oral marketing presentation, to design and build a trade show booth, a web site, a video commercial for their product, t-shirt designs and more.
BEST is free to participating schools. The public is welcome to attend BEST Game Day, Saturday, October 10th, Northwest-Shoals Community College gym on the Shoals campus. The doors will open at 8 a.m. The games begin around 9:30 a.m.
The Shoals Chamber of Commerce and NW-SCC are currently looking for judges and volunteers for the competition, October 10th. Anyone interested can call the Shoals Chamber of Commerce at (256) 764-4661 to register as a volunteer or for more information.
Schools participate in the 2014 BEST Game Day competition at NW-SCC
2015 NORTHWEST ALABAMA BEST ROBOTICS
PARTICIPATING SCHOOLS
N = New teams to the BEST competition
Bankhead Middle School
Brooks High School
Cherokee High School
Colbert County High School
Creekside Academy
Covenant Christian School
Deshler Middle School (N)
Double Springs Middle School (N)
Haleyville Center of Technology
Lauderdale County High School
Lexington High School
Loretto High School
Meek High School (N)
Moulton Middle / Lawrence County High
Muscle Shoals Career Academy
Phil Campbell High School
Russellville City Schools
Red Bay High School (N)
Rogers High School (N)
Shoals Christian School
Tharptown High School (N)
Waterloo School
Wilson High School
Winfield Middle School
Northwest Alabama BEST Robotics is a workforce development partnership between the Shoals Chamber of Commerce and Northwest-Shoals Community College. Each fall, over 850 middle and high schools and over 18,000 students participate in the competition nationwide. For more information visit: http://nwalabamabest.org or www.bestinc.org.
MEDIA RELEASE/NWS-CC/TRENT RANDOLPH
