Lion’s Pride BEST Robotics Game Day

On October 26, Texas A&M University-Commerce held Lion's Pride BEST Robotics Game Day.

This year's event featured 22 teams from local high schools competing by boosting engineering, science and technology (BEST). The 2013 theme was Gatekeeper and each team's objective was to design a prototype robot to construct a central processing unit (CPU) over the course of three fabrication stages: Gate Fabrication, Integrated Circuit (IC) Fabrication, and CPU Fabrication.

“Over a six week period in the fall, students embody the Department of Engineering & Technology's mission statement: Practical Ingenuity,” said Dr. Brent Donham, Head of the Engineering & Technology Department. “The ability of these students to transform plywood, PVC pipe, aluminum, screws, hardware, and other miscellaneous items into a functional machine to solve a problem is remarkable and a joy to watch.”

Greenville Christian School and Christian Homeschoolers in Paris took home first and second place respectively in the BEST Award category, given for robotics, marketing presentations, exhibit interviews, sportsmanship and engineering notebooks. Both teams advanced to the regional championship held at the University of Texas at Dallas on November 8 and 9. For the BEST Robotics Award category, Quinlan Ford High School and Sherman High School also advanced to regionals for their respective first and second place finishes.

The sponsors for this year's Lion's Pride BEST day were Flowserve in Sulphur Springs, Harrison, Walker & Harper 1887 in Paris, L-3 Mission Integration in Greenville, Texas A&M University-Commerce's College of Science, Engineering & Agriculture, Lion Athletics and an anonymous sponsor from somewhere in Texas.