BEST: Boosting Engineering, Science, and Technology.
This last fall (2007) our team, Thunderstorm Robotics, headed down to Alva for the BEST kickoff at Northwest Oklahoma State University. It turned out to be half a day of listening to instructions and key points about the game, visiting the playing field, and brainstorming over lunch before heading home for a six-week build period. There were just six weeks for us to construct a robot, practice driving, assemble a presentation, a table display, and come up with a strategy for how to play the game to our greatest advantage. Most of us, if not all of us, had a great time. We left the college with ideas running through our heads a mile a minute; a great way to think if you ask me.
Our first meeting was the following Tuesday. Due to a lot of unseasonable (but much needed) rain, our shop had flooded. The team had to meet in several different places, usually on the OSU campus. This was the way it was for about two weeks. We did not get much of the building done, but we did not waste any of that time. Instead those two weeks were spent brainstorming, making plans for the presentation, a table display, and other details.
The last four weeks were spent building. If you have ever been on a Robotics team, you will know (or soon find out) that it isn’t the fancy t-shirts or the loud music, (though they do help), that makes you a team; it is the late nights, the frantic building, and the rush of last-minute details that actually bring a team together. Robotics was, is, and will continue to be, a lot of hard work. It is a six-week sacrifice of time, energy, and sleep.  But it is also a lot of fun.
Our robot wasn’t the best, we were not the best, but we had built a team by the end of that six-week build season. We did not make it to first or second place in any of the awards, but we had done well. And by then we were a team: Team #88, Thunderstorm Robotics.