Students try their hand at robotics competition at Hartman Arena (+video)

High school-aged math and science students gathered Saturday at Hartman Arena for an annual high school robotics competition called Kansas BEST, which stands for Boosting Engineering, Science and Technology.

Thirty teams participated in rounds of three-minute competitions in which team members use a remote control to guide a hand-built robot through an obstacle course.

Teams competed in two main categories: a robotics competition and a BEST competition, which involves a marketing campaign, oral presentation and themed booth to accompany the team’s robot.

Each team spent six weeks building and programming remote-controlled robots with a set list of materials assigned by the event organizers. A new robot course is set each year and replicated around the country. Kansas event organizers are tasked with designing next year’s course for the rest of the country.

Fellow students, family members, supporters and Wichita-based engineers watched teams compete, four at a time.

The crowd resembled spectators at a high school sporting event rather than a math and science engineering competition.

Crowd members were decked out in school colors, some in costumes and many in fan gear.

Students chanted and screamed while teams competed. Cheerleading squads performed routines for various schools. Marching band members lined the arena’s seats, playing music. Some spectators held signs and drummed on metal trashcans.

The loud, rambunctious atmosphere made it difficult to hear someone close by, let alone concentrate on operating a fragile robot thorough an obstacle course.

“You have to tune all the noise out,” said Ben Ottaviano, an 18-year-old senior from Ambassadors of Christ Academy in Bentonville, Ark. “And it’s just you and the robot on the field.”

Ottaviano said he plans to study aeronautical engineering at Wichita State University and that he learned about the WSU program through the BEST competition.

Ambassadors of Christ Academy was one of two teams that traveled from out of state to the Kansas BEST competition.

Art Cunningham, coach of the Ambassadors of Christ Academy team, said the team started coming to Kansas about 12 years ago when the Arkansas BEST competition required teams to belong to the state’s athletic association.

Cunningham said team members have enjoyed the Kansas event and have been coming to it ever since.

Cunningham looked at the team’s scores after Ottaviano competed in one of the rounds.

“He did exactly what the plan was,” Cunningham said. “Not necessarily get the most points. We purposely don’t get the highest score now.”

Ambassadors of Christ Academy won the Kansas competition 11 times and the regional competition five times. Cunningham said they usually compete neck-in-neck with Wichita Homeschool Association.

“They’re our buddies but also our archrivals,” he said jokingly.

To go along with the Pay Dirt theme of this year’s event, the Wichita Homeschool Association designed its booth to resemble a vintage mine shaft.

The highly detailed booth included distressed wood floors, imitation rock walls, an infinity painting of a railway, a vintage lantern, a pickax and fake mine carts that carried materials used in this year’s robotics course.

Booth presenters wore hard hats, rugged jeans, T-shirts and work boots and looked as if they had coal on their faces and clothing.

But the most impressive aspect of the booth was a mine shaft re-creation with an infinity mirror.

Jacob Schlittenhardt, a 17-year-old senior and manager of the Wichita Homeschool Association booth, came up with the idea.

“I watched a lot of YouTube videos about how to make infinity mirrors,” he said, laughing.

The final product included a mirror at the base, vintage wood and a light with a one-sided mirror on top.

Emma Dixon, a 17-year-old senior with Wichita Homeschool Association, said she loves the competition because of how many different positions and skill sets it takes to pull off the event. She said team members met five days a week to prepare.

Devin Smith, a 16-year-old junior on the team, said the competition helped him find a new passion for computer-assisted design.

“I didn’t even know that existed before,” he said. “It’s one of my favorite things to do now.”

This story was originally published October 31, 2015 at 6:20 PM with the headline "Students try their hand at robotics competition at Hartman Arena (+video)."