This weekend was the annual Texas BEST Robotics competition. It was absolutely crazy. Schools from all over Texas (and even New Mexico) made their way to UNT's College of Engineering for the event. My first duty as an Engineering Ambassador was to give tours of the campus. The first was to a group of about 25 students from an all girls private school. The second was a group of around 15 home-schooled students. I got, let's say "lucky," with the size of my tour groups. I saw other tour guides walked around with near 60 ELEMENTARY school students. Elementary school students can program robots? When I was that age, I couldn't even figure out how to use Kid Pix (please tell me that someone remembers Kid Pix)!
Once the shock of 9-year-olds programming robots wore off, --well, no, that still hasn't quite wore off yet. I am still light years beyond amazed. Later that night, the whole lot of participants, mentors, drivers, chaperons, judges, and volunteers made their way to the Coliseum.
The teams had set up presentations for attendees to view. These things were huge; I saw one come out of the back of a U-Haul! A few of them even had big screen TVs with presentations playing on them.
The Friday Night Mixer was a blast.
The Engineering Ambassadors had a few game booths where BEST participants could win prizes including: an iPod Touch, a PSP, a digital camera, and even an iPad! I was at the "Name That Tune" booth which was great. The music DJ would announce an eligible song, and participants would have to write down the title and artist of the song in order to be put into the drawing. We had so much fun dancing to Cupid Shuffle and the Cha Cha Slide!
Texas BEST was a great experience; I can't wait for next year!
Random Fact: Leonardo da Vinci drew up plans for an armored humanoid machine in 1495. Engineer Mark Rosheim has created a functional miniature version for NASA to help colonize Mars.
Once the shock of 9-year-olds programming robots wore off, --well, no, that still hasn't quite wore off yet. I am still light years beyond amazed. Later that night, the whole lot of participants, mentors, drivers, chaperons, judges, and volunteers made their way to the Coliseum.
The teams had set up presentations for attendees to view. These things were huge; I saw one come out of the back of a U-Haul! A few of them even had big screen TVs with presentations playing on them.
The Friday Night Mixer was a blast.
The Engineering Ambassadors had a few game booths where BEST participants could win prizes including: an iPod Touch, a PSP, a digital camera, and even an iPad! I was at the "Name That Tune" booth which was great. The music DJ would announce an eligible song, and participants would have to write down the title and artist of the song in order to be put into the drawing. We had so much fun dancing to Cupid Shuffle and the Cha Cha Slide!
Texas BEST was a great experience; I can't wait for next year!
Random Fact: Leonardo da Vinci drew up plans for an armored humanoid machine in 1495. Engineer Mark Rosheim has created a functional miniature version for NASA to help colonize Mars.
