(WEST TEXAS) – Hundreds of south Texas middle and high school students made their way to TSTC’s Student Center Gym in Sweetwater to put their robots to the test in the Big Country BEST Robotics competition.

Roscoe Collegiate High School topped the competition, winning the BEST Award and the Most Robust Robot award.

Also advancing to the regional competition in the Dallas area are Sweetwater High School and Sweetwater Middle School.

BEST (Boosting Engineering, Science and Technology) is a non-profit organization whose goal is to help students develop technological literacy skills and encourage interest in engineering, science and technology.

TSTC has hosted the Big Country BEST event for the past five years. This year’s competition began with Kick-Off on Sept. 12.

Terry Blankenship, Director of Development for TSTC, said the community usually comes out to support the event, and teams come from long distances to participate.

“Out of about 55 volunteers, about 40 were TSTC employees, and 15 were employees from Ludlum Measurements,” Blankenship said. “The 15 teams that competed travel here from up to 150 miles away.”

In this year’s competition, “Pay Dirt,” students are tasked with designing a robot that can remove five lucrative materials from the fictional BEST Inc. Mining Division’s mine.

Along with building and programming a robot to achieve the tasks at hand, students also have to create and pitch a marketing presentation to a panel of judges, and turn in an engineering notebook documenting their construction process.

Maria Aguirre, TSTC’s Director of Marketing Compliance, was one of the judges for the marketing presentations.

“The marketing presentations for BEST robotics allow the students to ‘sell’ their product,” Aguirre said. “Participants are judged on their website and their presentation skills and what they know about their product. It’s great to see each school’s presentation; students are learning skills they will continue to use later in life.”

The winning teams will compete against teams from a five-state area in the BEST regional competition on Friday, Nov. 13 and Saturday, Nov. 14, at the Curtis Culwell Center at 4999 Naaman Forest Blvd in Garland.