Three Starkville teams and their robots are preparing to test their mettle in the state Boosting Engineering, Science, and Technology challenge this weekend on Mississippi State’s campus.

Article by Joshua Starr

Each year, BEST gives participants six weeks and a kit of materials with which to address real-world demands. The 2016 competition, Bet the Farm, challenges them to design, build, program and market machines dedicated agricultural tasks like planting seeds, irrigating and harvesting crops and corralling livestock.

Starkville High School’s RoboJackets, Starkville Christian Home Educators’ Eclipse Robotics team and Starkville Christian School’s CougarBots, are among the 26 Mississippi middle and high school groups to participate in the competition MSU’s Bagley College of Engineering has hosted annually since 2005.

Velmitra White, Mississippi BEST program director, said BEST is designed to expand the knowledge students learn in the classroom.

“The kids actually get to program a robot to go out a do a specific task and actually see a robot do what they programmed it to do,” White said.

Gavin Jones, SHS junior and RoboJackets engineer, has helped build the team’s robots for three years. As one of 62 RoboJackets, Jones said he particularly enjoys working with his teammates to solve problems creatively.

“My favorite part is being hands on and getting to do what I love,” he said.

RoboJackets faculty mentor Denise Adair said the team has doubled its membership since its first year in 2011. Adair attributes the RoboJackets’ success, taking four BEST state titles in five years, to the team’s growth in size and experience. She said this growth is due in no small part to the team’s outreach and recruitment efforts.

“What we did specifically this year is we had a night where we invited Armstrong (Middle School) kids interested in joining the team over,” she said. “We showed them marketing stuff, and we took them down to the robot room and they saw the robot in action. We might have had over 100 kids and parents show up for that, and we ended up gaining 23 from Armstrong this year.”

Eclipse mentor Beth Lane said she has seen a tangible impact of the competition for students over the course of the decade in which SCHE has participated. She said new Eclipse members are often surprised by how much fun math and science can be, and several former members have gone into engineering fields as a direct result of their BEST experiences.

“I even had one parent tell me that their child took more of an interest in math because they realized there was actually a practical reason for learning how to do it,” Lane said.

White said in addition to BEST’s focus on practical science, technology, engineering and mathematics education, the competition’s marketing component is intended to give participants an edge in the modern marketplace.

“They learn to understand the entrepreneurial process, as well, and comprehend the global business environment,” White said. “It’s not only STEM. We want to be able to teach the students other skills as well – communication skills, leadership skills, teamwork skills and also how to become effective business owners one day.”

Candace Bolden, SCHE senior and Eclipse head marketer, said though she has loved robotics since before her first builds at a Mississippi State engineering camp in middle school, she learned she could contribute in other ways when she joined Eclipse as a freshman — particularly through media production and marketing.

“At first I was really disappointed [building the robots] wasn’t my biggest strengths,” she said. “I found out that there were different aspects of the robotics team, and that was marketing a product that you know so much about.”

Bolden said she has particularly enjoyed the camaraderie she has found in Eclipse, but building a tech business in six weeks is a difficult challenge, especially for Eclipse’s relatively small, 17-member team. She said, however, learning to beat the clock has translated skills she plans to take with her to college.

“We just stick together and take the time that it takes to build a business because that’s what we’re doing,” Bolden said. “We’re building a business in six weeks.”

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