HMS to compete in the Regional BEST Robotics this weekend

Homewood Middle School Team Robot qualified for the Regional BEST competition by winning first place in the local competition Blazer BEST in October. HMS came in first place in the game and won first place for their engineering notebook. They also won the Founder's Award for the most creative robot and they won Most Robust Robot.

The HMS Team Robot is a highly engaging extracurricular program that is offered to any interested student. HMS Team Robot participates annually in the Blazer BEST robotics competition, a hub of the national BEST Robotics program. BEST stands for Boosting Engineering, Science and Technology and in practice it does just that, engaging students in the engineering process, exploring science themes and utilizing technology for a variety of purposes.

HMS Team Robot has a running record of placing in the top three in the Blazer BEST hub in Birmingham and moving on to the regional competition. This is no small feat considering that HMS is competing in a predominately high school-aged competition.

Each team of students must build and program a robot out of materials provided and then use that robot to build a separate structure.

The team is divided into the Build and BEST teams. The Build team constructs the robot for the challenge and spends time practicing driving it for the competition. The BEST team is responsible for the engineering notebook, a marketing presentation, and an 8-by-8-foot booth showcasing the team’s work and the engineering process that went into building the robot.