We are excited to have your teams compete in the NEW Rocky Mountain BEST Robotics ONLINE competition. We are still working the details of our ONLINE competition plan and Kickoff details. We hope our current plans provided in this newsletter give you the information you need to decide if this year's ONLINE competition will work for you and your school.
In this newsletter, we are asking to finalize team participation and we are providing our top-level competition schedule, initial Kickoff event plans and recommending preparation steps. Some of our DRAFT plans may change as we finish developing all the competition details.
Here are a few highlights of the 2020 BEST ONLINE Outbreak competition.
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Teams will work with two robots:
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1) The traditional BEST TEAM Robot is developed through the prototype / design step. BEST Robotics Outbreak game rules are used. No kits are used to construct a robot nor is a physical Game Field used. A new Critical Design Review activity captures the student's efforts along with the traditional BEST Award Components - excluding Spirit and Sportsmanship.
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2) A new VIRTUAL Robot on a VIRTUAL Game Field is a part of the 2020 competition. A VIRTUAL Robot using MathWorks with slightly modified BEST Robotics Outbreak game rules competes in the Robot Performance time trial competition and competes in the Autonomous Programming Skills Challenge.
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National Registry - new registration interface, team workflow management, and team file repository (more information below).
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New ONLINE Challenges Activities - some skills challenge activities are optional for us to include in the competition. We will support the optional activities depending on team interest (more information below).
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ONLINE Communication Infrastructure - we are still working which tools to use for ONLINE Meetings and Streaming. More to come prior to and at Kickoff.
SCHOOL PARTICIPATION CONFIRMATION
With the unique challenges of the 2020 school year and this NEW ONLINE approach to BEST Robotics, we are asking for teams to confirm via a quick email their participation by 12 September even though you may have registered previously.
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PLEASE reply to this email ASAP or click here to send me an email to let us know if you are planning to participate this fall -- YES or NO. This way we can update our plans for the number of teams participating. Registration ends 12 September.
UPDATED DRAFT 9 Week SEASON PLANS 19 September - 22 November 2020
- 19 September - Kickoff Event - ONLINE
- 28 September - Optional Skills Activity Participation Interest - We will determine which skills we will offer based on school interest
- 10 October - BEST Award Activity Scheduling deadline
- 7 November - Practice Day Activities - ONLINE Scheduled VIRTUAL Robot Time Trials Practice (MathWorks Robotics Playground)
- 7 November - Engineering Notebook Deliverable Due
- 7 - 22 November - specific dates for Competition Activities including Judging and Deliverables to be provided at Kickoff Event. We anticipate scheduling competition activities on weekends: Saturday Mornings and Afternoons and Sunday Afternoons.
- 22 November PM - Awards Ceremony - ONLINE
UPDATED DRAFT ONLINE KICKOFF EVENT PLANS - Start time CHANGE
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Schedule - Kickoff event ONLINE location to OPEN at 9:00 AM and then presenting starting at 9:30 AM - CHANGE! AND breakout sessions starting at 11 AM
- BEST Robotics Outbreak Game Documents to be available on your team's National Registry page on 19 September at NOON.
- We plan to record all the sessions so those who are unable to attend may view the material afterwards. These recordings will be posted to your team's National Registry pages.
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Currently Planned Breakout sessions: Team Robot Kit & Rules, Intro to Engineering Notebook, The BEST Award, Teacher and Mentor Tips, Intro to BEST Control Systems, and Robot Design Tips
- More details to be emailed prior to the event, including virtual meeting instructions.
RECOMMENDED CURRENT TEAM ACTIVITIES
- Recruit Students for your school's Team
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Become familiar with National Registry Team capabilities - Resources: Overview of Improved & Expanded National Registry Tool AND Link for ALL 7 National Registry instruction videos. RM BEST is working to populate BEST Team Registry page files and add activity scheduling options by the Kickoff event.
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Provide parents instructions to register their children in BEST National Registry: First use this video file: BNR - Creating Account for a parent to learn how to create a National Registry account, and then use this video file: BNR - Registering a Student for a parent to learn how to register their children. Teachers and students are not to register a student. Parents need to select their student's school name and Rocky Mountain BEST as the team BEST Robotics Hub. Includes acknowledgements for 2 consent and release agreements that are required for the students to participate. Introduces a Post Event Survey that is required to be completed by the parent working with the student and available a week prior to Game Day. The survey captures the Demographics information for that student. More information to be provided on this activity.
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bESTology - 12 weeks of web postings that provides resources for Engineering Notebook Resource Paper (more information below)
- Request complimentary MathWorks software and get familiar with Simulink. See Simulink information BELOW - including how to request software, available training resources, and how to get help. Simulink use is required for the Virtual Robot activities.
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Prerequisites including Simulink Computer hardware prerequisites are described in the table below.
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We have a limited number of Windows laptops to loan out if your team does not have access to a Windows, Mac or UNIX computer to run MathWorks for the Virtual Robot activities. Please email Carolyn Bauer at carolyn.bauer@bestinc.org if it might be helpful to have a loaned computer.
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Possible other computer hardware resource options include: 1) MATLAB/Simulink Online - Available to all students via their free MathWorks Account. Usable AFTER the 9 September release - with some limitations, such as: Cannot be used for VIRTUAL Driver controlled robots on Robotics Playground. 2) 3rd Party Remote Desktop Applications - "Remote Desktop" provides remote desktop sharing to computer(s) running MATLAB/Simulink (e.g., a teacher or school computer or lab computer). This is NOT the same as a network install. The MathWorks license does not allow execution on a network. Joystick will not work with this method; keyboard control should work but it may be slower based on remote desktop software and internet connection. Can be used for Robot Modeling challenge with lost functionality (no Mechanics Explorer is available).
QUESTIONS/FEEDBACK?
Please reply if you have any questions or need additional information or you HAVE SUGGESTIONS.
If you have registered and decide your school is NOT able to compete this fall, please reply to this email.
