Kansas BEST, an annual robotics competition held at Wichita State University, brings hundreds of high school students to campus each year.

Sophomore Mike Staab, aerospace engineering major and former BEST competitor, said the competition got him excited about engineering as a career field.

Staab began competing in Kansas BEST his sophomore year at Maize High School and continued through his senior year. At WSU, he is the volunteer coordinator for the event.

“Most all the student volunteers are engineering majors,” Staab said, “and were involved with it when they were in high school.”

Some WSU student volunteers act as mentors for their old high school teams, he said.

“A mentor advises and counsels kids without doing the work for them,” said Larry Frutiger, co-director of Kansas BEST.

Professional volunteers from area industries such as Cessna Aircraft Company, Hawker Beechcraft and Boeing also come to help mentor teams.

From designing to building, industry professionals take time to help kids, Staab said.

As Frutiger explained, BEST is a six-week science and engineering based competition. Teams are organized into hubs, a group of teams competing against each other. There are 33 hubs in the country, and more than 10,000 students are involved nationwide.

The Kansas BEST hub began in 1999 as a project of the engineering Dean’s Circle.

“It was created to get kids interested in science and technology,” Frutiger said. “We are falling behind in those areas in this country.”

The theme of the game is announced each year on Kickoff Day. After five weeks, competitors get together once for Mall Day and again, one week later, on Game Day to compete.

Each team must design and build a robot to complete a game task. All teams are given identical kits of equipment and a set of game rules. There is no fee to participate, and kits are free.

“That’s the unique part of this program,” Frutiger said.

In addition to the first, second and third place trophies, local companies hand out special awards such as the Boeing Creativity Award.

The Dean’s Circle of WSU created the Bill Wilhelm Engineering Scholarship award in 2000. Applicants must be former BEST competitors to receive this scholarship.

“The College of Engineering is one of the primary sponsors for the competition,” Staab said. “Without the Dean’s Circle and volunteers, (it) wouldn’t take place.”

Staab considers BEST one of the top competitions at WSU.

“Of all the engineering programs that WSU does for high school and middle school students, this is the best,” he said. “It’s a good step into a field like this.”

Though Staab participated at WSU in the competitions, he was unsure about attending school in Wichita. A conversation with Scott Miller, chairman and professor of aerospace engineering, was a key part of Staab’s choosing WSU.

“I talked to (Miller) for over an hour during a campus visit,” Staab said. “My group had to come get me.”

Staab also interned at AirBus while in high school, and is working on getting an internship at NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center.

“The work they are doing out there is just incredible,” he said.

His plan is to go to graduate school and apply for the astronaut corps.

“NASA is the only place I ever want to work,” he said.

Staab is a Wallace Scholar, the event coordinator of WSU’s American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and a member of the engineering council.

He works at the National Institute for Aviation Research at WSU in the aging aircraft research lab. He is also a certified high-powered rocket flyer and scuba diver.

“It’s the unknown of what we can do,” he said of engineering. “I’m loving every bit of it."