Video: Robotics Competition in Starkville

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STARKVILLE, Miss. (WCBI) – It was a full house Saturday at Armstrong Middle School where teams from all over Mississippi were ready to show off their creations at the Robotics Competition.

Supporters were loud with cheer, waiting for their teams to perform. Teams had six weeks to build a robot for a task that would take them straight into space.

“The concept behind the robot is to be a space elevator which is like a device that goes up into space on a carbon namo tube and it’s suppose to be the new alternative to the space shuttle,” said competitor Kelley Mazzola.

“If you look at out field, they’re climbing a robot vertically, we’ve never done this before and so there’s a lot of physics they have to consider there,” said Director of Best, Eric Heiselt.

The participating teams came from all over Mississippi and Tennessee middle and high schools. Three of the teams were from Starkville.

“Best is a robotics competition that was formed to help students with the engineering design process without any made pieces, so unlike others where you got pieces you’re just putting together, these kids get a bucket that basically has plywood, nails, screws, some motors and that’s it,” said Director Heiselt.

Each team has 3 minutes to perform 9 tasks and some students say they’ve been anxiously waiting for this day.

“I’m so nervous, I just want everything to go perfectly, we’ve been working don’t want anything to mess up,” said competitor Abigail Grayson.

For many of theses students competitions like this is only a stepping stone for a career in robotics and mechanics. I
The winning teams of this competition will go on to the semi finals.