The IEEE Huntsville Section is serving on the Tennessee Valley BEST (Boosting Engineering, Science, and Technology) Steering Committee and serving in the role of the “A-Team technical crew during the local hub Competition to be held at Calhoun Community College. The Tennessee Valley BEST Competition is six weeks long beginning with Kick Off Day on Saturday, August 25, 2007 between 10:00 A.M. and 12:00 noon at Calhoun Community College, Decatur, AL. After Kick Off Day the competition officially begins. This Year’s game is called “2021: A Robot Odyssey.” Game Day will also be held at Calhoun Community College on Saturday, October 6, 2007 between 9 A.M. and 5:00 P.M.
The current schools signed up to participate in the Tennessee Valley BEST competition are: Alabama Avenue Middle School (Boaz), Athens Bible School (Athens), Austin High School (Decatur), Bob Jones High School (Madison), Gadsden High School, Holly Pond High School, Homewood Middle School (Birmingham), Hoover Freshmen Center (Hoover), Mountain Brook Junior High, New Century/Lee High Schools (Huntsville), Oak Mountain High School (Birmingham), Pleasant Valley High School (Jacksonville), Priceville High School, Riverside Christian Academy (Fayetteville, TN), Spain Park High School (Hoover), Sparkman High School (Harvest), and Vestavia Hills High School. These schools are still in need of mentors.
If you are interested in registering as a mentor, please contact Dr. George Blanks, blankgw@eng.auburn.edu . Ideally a team should have three to six mentors to reduce the amount of time each individual mentor will spend with the team. A team will meet about three times a week for about 3 hours per meeting for the six weeks. The mentors help the Teachers organize and manage the six week long design and construction phase of the competition. Anyone can be a mentor all you have to do is give of your time and energy in facilitating, being a resource, and catalyst in guiding the students in discovering their solution for the design and construction of the robot.
You can find out more about Tennessee Valley Best by accessing the following link: http://www.tennesseevalleybest.org/ and more about BEST by accessing http://www.bestinc.org/MVC/ or the South’s BEST at http://www.southsbest.org/ for Regional events. Please contact Bob Robinson at robert.a.robinson5@ieee.org or me at willie.fitzpatrick@ieee.org , if you are interested in serving as a volunteer for this year’s event as a member of the “A-Team” (Technical Crew).
Willie J. Fitzpatrick, PhD
Chair, IEEE Huntsville Section