UC Saves The BEST For Last Four Area High Schools Win UC Competition, Head Off to Alabama

The BEST competition is a collaboration between UC’s College of Applied Science and 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 competition was multifold: the robots were tested with a series of skilled tasks that had to be completed. The students also competed in presenting descriptions of their robots and the building process. 

Roger Bacon High School took top honors in the 2004 robotics competition (after coming in second in 2003). Loveland High School placed second in the robotics portion.

This year Kentucky was represented for the first time, through the participation of Georgetown’s Scott County High School — which won first place in the presentation competition. Ursuline Academy, in their second competition, took second place in presentation.

The teams were given all the materials at the kick-off on the UC campus on Sept. 25. They then took six weeks to design and test their robots. Mentors from UC and area professionals were teamed up with the schools to provide guidance and answer questions, but the students themselves must build the robot.

Eleven schools fielded 12 teams in 2004:

Glen Este High School

Harmony Community School

Hughes High School

Loveland High School

Northwest High School

Roger Bacon High School

Ross High School

Scott County High School

Sycamore High School

Ursuline Academy

Western Hills Design Tech High School

On Oct. 30, the teams met at the Cincinnati Museum Center for “Mall Day” to test run their robots on the game floor. The teams then used the following week to tweak their robots to obtain their maximum performance on “Game Day,” which took place at the Cincinnati Convention Center on Nov. 6. 

The next and final step in the BEST competition is at Auburn University in Alabama for “The South’s BEST” competition.

“My students enjoyed themselves and the event immensely,” says Tom O’Neill, IT Instructor for Ross High School/Butler Tech. He appreciated the opportunity to compete, even though his team didn’t win — this year. “We plan on competing again next year.” O’Neill used the competition to foster team skills. “We are an Information Technology class, but I wanted to use the BEST competition to help my students develop teamwork in an unknown environment. This competition taught them that they should be able to work together under any and all conditions or circumstances.”

Visit the South's BEST Web page to learn more about all the schools advancing to the finals. 

Other related stories:

Description of the national BEST program.

Read more about Bearcat BEST.

Look at the kick-off in UC’s TUC.

Announcement of last year’s winners.