BEST Robotics. BEST (Boosting Engineering, Science, and Technology) is a national six-week robotics competition in the United States held each fall, designed to help interest middle school and high school students in possible engineering careers. The games are similar in scale to those of the FIRST Tech Challenge.

History

The idea for a BEST (Boosting Engineering, Science, and Technology) competition originated in 1993 when two Texas Instruments (TI) engineers, Ted Mahler and Steve Marum, were serving as guides for Engineering Day at their company site in Sherman, Texas. Together with a group of high school students, they watched a video of freshmen building a robot in Woodie Flowers's class at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The high school students were so interested that Mahler and Marum said, "Why don't we do this?"

With enthusiastic approval from TI management, North Texas BEST was born. The first competition was held in 1993 with 14 schools and 221 students (including one team from San Antonio).

After learning that a San Antonio group had formed a non-profit organization to support a BEST event, North Texas BEST mentored them in providing their own BEST competition. Thus, San Antonio BEST, the second BEST competition site (or "hub"), was started in 1994. The two groups - North Texas and San Antonio - decided to meet for Texas BEST, a state playoff at Howard Payne University in Brownwood, Texas. The competition has also been held at Texas A&M University, Southern Methodist University (SMU), Texas Tech, University of North Texas (in Denton) and more recently it was hosted by the University of Texas at Dallas with the competition being held in Frisco, TX. The number of SABEST teams invited to Texas BEST is based on the ratio of schools participating at SA BEST to the total number participating at all the BEST hubs that feed Texas BEST multiplied by the total number of teams invited to Texas BEST.  The number of San Antonio teams varies from year to year but is typically approximately 8 teams. This is a regional playoff where BEST teams meet from around Texas and New Mexico.

In 1995, more hubs were started as word spread: Collin County BEST (Frisco, Texas), West Texas BEST (Texas Tech University in Lubbock), and Chicago BEST. Also that year, Texas BEST - the "state championship" - became an annual event sponsored by Texas Instruments and Texas A&M University.

BEST continued to grow, adding 3-4 hubs annually. In 1997, the four-year old organization established itself as a 501(c)3 non-profit corporation in the state of Texas as BEST Robotics, Inc. (BRI).
Its growth continued at a similar pace, spreading throughout Texas and neighboring states (Arkansas, Colorado, Oklahoma, New Mexico) and further (Kansas, Illinois, Kentucky and California).

In 2001, BEST held its first New Hub Workshop at Texas Instruments in Dallas. This sparked an explosion of growth in the next several years throughout Alabama and the south. In 2003, BEST's second regional championship was born, South's BEST, at Auburn University, Alabama. Thirty-six teams from nine hubs in Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Ohio, and Illinois competed. Texas BEST featured 60 teams from 17 hubs in five states. BEST continued to grow as many colleges and universities began organizing hubs. The reach became wider with hubs as far apart as Fargo, North Dakota and New Britain, Connecticut. Two additional championships were added as the program expanded across the US, bringing the total to four. Frontier Trails BEST championship was established in Fort Smith, Arkansas and Northern Plains BEST championship in Fargo, North Dakota.

In 2009, the program started its bi-annual BEST National Conference for volunteers and teachers. The conference is held during the summers of odd years and provides a great place to share information. There are typically tracks regarding hub execution, technical training, design process, and other teacher training.

In 2017, BEST moved its national headquarters to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Games
1993:	PVC Insanity
1994:	Bumble Rumble
1995:	TOTALly AweSum	
1996:	Block N’ Load
1997:	Dynamite Duel
1998:	Toxic Troubles
1999:	Rocket Race: The Alien Escape
2000:	Pandemonium in the Smithsonian	
2001:	RAD to the CORE
2002:	Warp X
2003:	Transfusion Confusion	
2004:	BEST Fever
2005:	Mission to Hubble	
2006:	Laundry Quandary	
2007:	2021 – A Robot Odyssey	
2008:	Just Plane Crazy
2009:	High Octane
2010:	Total Recall	
2011:	BUGS!
2012:	WARP XX	
2013:	Gatekeeper
2014:	Bladerunner
2015:  PAY DIRT!
2016:  Bet the Farm
2017:  Crossfire
2018:  Current Events
2019:  Off The Grid
2020:  Outbreak
2021:  Demo Daze
2022:  Made2Order
2023:  Incision Decision
2024:  LowG
2025:  3D-PRINTING

References

External links 
 BEST Robotics, Inc. (BRI)

Recurring events established in 1993
Student robotics competitions