A team of young home-schoolers who call themselves the ‘FUELbots,’ have geared up and entered the Boosting Engineering Science and Technology (BEST) Robotics competition through Northeast Alabama Community College (NACC).

BEST is a national program that inspires students in grades 5-12 to pursue careers in engineering, science, technology, and mathematics through participation in sports-like Science and Engineering-based robotics projects.

The competition will be held at the Northeast Alabama Agri-Business Center on Saturday, November 7, 2015 beginning at 7:30 a.m.

Thirteen-year-old, Gavin Cowart is part of the FUELbots team.

“Some of my friends participated with their school last year and I really wanted to be a part of it this year,” he said. “My mom, Hannah Cowart, helped organize a team of students from our home school group and we registered. We went to the college and got information from Dr. Mike Kennamer. He was very helpful in helping us get started.”

Kennamer is the director of workforce development and skills training at NACC and is the director of the program.

Topics covered in the course include basic safety, basic DC electronics, materials selection, mechanical principles, problem solving and engineering processes.

There are nine boys and two girls on the team ages 10-16. Members are: Austin Thomas, 10, Kyle Fortner, 10, Kennon Fortner, 10, Konnor Fortner, 10, Isabella Shelly, 11, Abbi Mann, 12, Gavin Cowart, 13, Andrew Shelly, 13, Ben Austin, 14, J.T. Shelly, 15, and Noah Austin, 16.

“Everyone from the team created possibilities for a logo and slogan,” Cowart said. “Then we each brought our designs and chose FUELbots by combining everybody’s ideas. We have designed and built a marketing booth for the competition. We looked at the diagrams and read the rules for the competition.”

Rules for the competition are very specific.

“For example,” Cowart said, “the robot could not weigh more than 24-pounds or be taller or wider than 24-inches. Also, we were only allowed to use the items provided by NACC to create it.

“We thought we had our design and strategy set,” he said, “but then we went to the Northwest BEST game day in Muscle Shoals to get a better idea of what we would be doing. After seeing their robots on the course, we changed our strategy and our robot design to be more effective.”

One of the requirements for the competition was to contact a local newspaper and tell them about the BEST.

“My Nanna, Emily Wooten, is a designer at The Daily Sentinel,” Cowart said. “So I volunteered to do that by writing a letter about our experience.

“The mar­keting booth, website, game strategy and the robot are all a joint effort,” he said. “This project has been a great experience in working together as a team. Each of us has strengths and it is sometimes surprising how ideas can become a reality. We’ve worked really hard and we hope to do well. It would be nice to bring home the BEST Rookie Team award.”

For more information about the BEST Robotics Competition, visit: www.northeastalbest.org.

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