SATURDAY: Area Schools Future Engineers and Scientists Gather in the Armory Fieldhouse on UC s Uptown Campus To Talk Laundry??

Bearcat BEST

Ah, fall. Autumn at UC means football games, returning students and the sights and smells of turning leaves. It also means that it’s time for UC to be descended upon for this year’s Boosting Engineering Science & Technology (BEST) contest. The annual robotics competition begins with handing out the materials and instructions to eager junior-high and high-school students and their teachers as Bearcat BEST kicks off in the Armory Fieldhouse at 9 a.m.

Bearcat BEST is an annual collaboration between UC’s College of Applied Science and the College of Engineering. The BEST program, which takes place on a national basis, is designed to promote teamwork, problem solving, project management and pride in task completion within a short time with limited resources.

“The BEST Competition encourages high school students with a penchant for design and innovation to get a taste of what engineering is all about and to apply some of what they have learned in math and science to engineering problems using robots,” says Frank Gerner, associate dean of the College of Engineering. Gerner notes with pride that the Bearcat BEST Competition has grown in the last several years to include many more schools, some from out of the immediate Tristate area. 

They Will Build It If They Come

At the kick-off, UC will provide all materials to the competing schools in boxes containing nuts, bolts, wheels, motor parts and other miscellaneous useful items. As always, the actual tasks for the teams’ robots are kept highly secret until after kick-off, except for the title, “Laundry Quandary.” On Saturday, for the first time, the teachers and students will see the game floor and hear the 2006 objectives. The teams are then given six weeks to design and test their robots. UC and area professionals are teamed up with the schools as mentors to provide guidance and answer questions, but the students themselves must build the robots.

So far, 14 schools have committed to this year’s Bearcat BEST. Among them is Hughes High School, which has competed all four years that UC has been a BEST hub; and Scott County (Ky.) High School, which was the first school from outside Ohio to compete. They led the way and others followed. Schools as far away as Davison, Mich.; Indianapolis; and Springboro, Ohio, will be competing this year.

Heck with the Whales, Save the Dates

“Mall Day” will take place on Saturday, Oct. 14, also in the Armory Fieldhouse on the UC campus. At this time, the teams will get a chance for a practice run with their robots on the game floor. They then have a week to tweak their robots.

“Game Day” this year will take place on Saturday, Oct. 21. That’s when the students’ efforts are put to the test. The winners of the 2006 UC competition go on to compete at the regional level at Auburn University in Alabama on Dec. 8 and 9.

The competition is multifold: the robots are tested with a series of skilled tasks that must be completed. The students also compete in presenting descriptions of their robots and the building process. Loveland High School took first place in Bearcat BEST in 2005.

“My team is very excited to learn what we have to do this year,” says Loveland teacher Sue Evans. “The laundry quandary has us all thinking and pondering the robotic possibilities of everyday chores.”

Cheryll Dunn, associate dean in the college of Applied Science, and Ken Simonson, director of the Emerging Ethnic Engineers program in the College of Engineering, are co-coordinators of UC’s Bearcat BEST competition.

“This will be an exciting third year for the team,” says teacher Evans, “however, our only returning veterans are Thomas Dearden, Katie Rost, Michelle Veite and Michael Downing.  We are very excited to have a larger team this year — 20 students!” Maybe Loveland is looking to be the LARGEST team this year as well as the BEST!

After placing in the Bearcat BEST in 2005, Loveland High School competed in the South’s BEST regional competition and won second place for best T-shirt design. Davison (Mich.) High School on the robotics portion of the UC competition and went on to win the first-place robotics award and the first-place award in “most elegant,” as well as the “igus Top Gun Award” (the team that scored that most points in a single round).

Besides the colleges of Engineering and Applied Science, Bearcat BEST 2006 is also sponsored by Goodrich. 

Bearcat Best Kick-Off  — Saturday, Sept. 9, 2006, Armory Fieldhouse (UC) at 9 a.m.
Mall Day  — Saturday, Oct. 14, 2006, Armory Fieldhouse (UC)
Game Day  — Saturday, Oct. 21, 2006, Duke Energy Convention Center, Downtown Cincinnati 

For more information, contact Sherri Cmar at sherri.cmar@uc.edu or (513) 556-6561.

Other related stories:
UC Saves the BEST for Last
The 2004 kick-off in UC’s TUC
Winners of 2005 Bearcat BEST

National BEST program
South’s BEST December 8-9
Read more about the history of Bearcat BEST.