Game Day November 1, 2025 Program
Kansas BEST is made possible by dedicated volunteers, loyal sponsors, the WSU College of Engineering and the Kansas BEST Steering Committee
- Dr. Steven Skinner, Dean WSU College of Engineering
- Terrance Williams, Director Recruitment and Outreach
- WSU College of Engineering
for their full support of Kansas BEST.
WSU Foundation for enlisting Kansas BEST sponsors
Additional volunteers for their invaluable contributions
Times are approximate
7:00 a.m. Team Registration, Check-In, Team Photos
8:45 a.m. Pit Meeting
9:00 a.m. Opening Ceremony
9:30 a.m. Seeding Competition (6 matches, randomly-selected opponents)
2:00 p.m. Wildcard Match
2:30 p.m. Top 8 teams play 6 Semi-final matches
3:00 p.m. Top 4 teams play 3 Final matches
3:30 p.m. Awards Ceremony
4:00 p.m. Conclusion of Game Day Activities
Kansas BEST gratefully acknowledges the generous sponsorship of these organizations:
FOUNDING PARTNER
Texas Instruments
LOCAL PARTNER
Wichita State University College of Engineering
NATIONAL SPONSORS
MathWorks
Tennesee Valley Robotics | igus
Dassault Systems Solidworks
PRUSA Research
KANSAS BEST LOCAL SPONSORS
Engineers Foundation of Kansas (ELK)
Kansas Society of Professional Engineers (KSPE)
KANSAS BEST FRIENDS
W. Frank Barton School of Business
WSU Project Innovation Hub
Bryan Jaax
The BEST (Boosting Engineering, Science and TechnologyTM) mission is to engage and excite students about engineering, science, and technology as well as inspire them to pursue careers in these field. BEST is designed to encourage youth through participation in a sports-like contest, in which middle and high school students design and build a remote-controlled robot. Industry and education professionals volunteer as team mentors, providing professional expertise in the design and construction processes of the competition.
BEST students learn to analyze and solve problems using the Engineering Design Process, which helps students develop technological literacy skills—skills that industry seeks in its workforce. To simulate a “real world” business and engineering environment, some competition restrictions include:
• Short development time (eight weeks)
• Limited components (identical materials provided)
• Specific design requirements (size, weight, etc.)
BEST program goals are accomplished through participation in local “hub” competitions, of which Kansas BEST is one. Other hubs are located in Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, New Mexico, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Texas. There are three regional championships in December, in which the top teams from each hub compete: Texas BEST Championship hosted by University of Texas at Dallas; South’s BEST Championship hosted by Auburn University; and Denver BEST hosted by Rocky Mtn BEST. Kansas BEST will send the top 4 teams to the Denver BEST Championship. These teams will receive stipends to attend the competition.
The BEST program receives vital support from school administrators and local businesses. Financial support is received from both individuals and industry.
For more information, visit these BEST websites:
Kansas: kansasbest.org | BEST Robotics, Inc.: www.bestinc.org
Facebook: fb.com/Kansas BEST Robotics
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been science fiction for decades.
Today many companies, such as IBM, Google, OpenAI, Nvidia and others, are actively developing artificial intelligence systems. BEST Robotics does not want to be left behind in this exciting endeavor and is looking to its many teams to develop and train an AI system. Teams are to build a robot which represents a pair of AI software systems. The first is a neural network constructor. Neural nets are the building blocks of AI, defining the connections from the inputs of the AI to the outputs of the AI. Use the robot to select the connection matrix and wire it up. The second is a “web crawler,” which searches the internet to find data that will be used to train the AI. BEST only wants to train their AI using the highest quality information available. Some sources of information (libraries and newspapers) contain more truth and fewer errors than other sources (social media sites). BEST wants a robot that can distinguish between fact and fiction.
The robot’s twofold job is to build a neural network and to “crawl” the internet sites, collecting the TRUE factoids and ignoring the FALSE factoids.
Objectives
Design and build a robot capable of training your team’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) by performing the following tasks:
Data Collection
- Collect data elements from any of 4 distinct areas
- Sort data elements as TRUE or FALSE based on certain (physical) properties
Select/Build an AI Model
- Select a specific AI model to build/train (one of 3)
- Build a Neural Network AI model by connecting network Tiles to the available nodes
Train (LEARN)
- Feed the model as much TRUE data as possible to maximize the probability of success for the model
The tasks are to be performed by robotic methods.
Bold names are teams that are competing for the BEST Award, * Indicates teams participating for the first time.
351 Wichita Collegiate HS
352 Moundridge
354 Council Grove High School
355 Kapaun Mt. Carmel Catholic High School
358 Wichita Homeschool
359 Republic County High School
365 Quark Robotics - Rose Hill
366 Central Christian Academy
367 McHomes Homeschool Co-op *
368 USD 300 - South Central High School
370 Garden City High School
372 Rock Creek High School
376 Life Prepatory Academy
378 Valley Center High School
384 Berean Academy
388 Stafford
390 Wellington STEM *
Masters of Ceremony: Jeffery Thomas, Ruby Forrester
Staging: Paul Cook, Ron Morgan
Check-in Compliance: John Matthew, Wyatt Smrcka, Ethan Lif
Floor Boss (Rules): John Matthew
Pit Boss: Bryan Jaax
Referees: Scott Ricke (Head Referee), Misti Burch, Talon Sullivan, Brandon McIntosh, Nicholas Burgeson, Amber Whittaker, Bryan Edwards, Stan Clements, Tom Cornwell
Scoring: Joel Cazares
Head Judge: Kirsten Jensen
The Kansas BEST steering group aims to motivate high school students to pursue careers in engineering, science and technology. BEST provides a means to showcase opportunities at Wichita State University and encourage students to pursue engineering degrees within the WSU College of Engineering.
In 2000, the Bill Wilhelm Endowed Engineering Scholarship was established with unique eligibility requirements. To be a recipient of this scholarship, a student must be a past participant of Kansas BEST. In addition to this scholarship fund, the Kansas BEST Scholarship fund was created to support former BEST participants pursuing engineering degrees at WSU. Past recipients include:
|
2002 – Amanda Roeder 2003 – Leah Boundy 2004 – Jenny Marshall 2005 – Kevin Brauning 2006 – Joey Marshall 2007 – Michael Staab 2008 – Brian Pham 2009 – Ben Hayes 2010 – Cade Hiebsch 2011 – Kevin Brink 2012 – Brett Harms and Nathan Albert 2013 – Jeremy Marshall and Samuel Janssen |
2014 – Joshua Albert and Mason Ryle 2015 – Johnny Marshall, Gabriel McGregor 2016 – Umama Ali 2017 – Jessica Prudence 2018 – Victoria Bishop 2019 – Jennifer Weddle 2020 – Jess Prudence 2021 – David Hathaway 2022 – Jamey Marshall 2023 – Calla Unruh 2024 – Matthew Phan 2025 - Ethan Lif |
Any high school team competing in the Kansas BEST Game competition is eligible for the BEST Award, which goes to the team that best embodies the concept of Boosting Engineering, Science, and TechnologyTM. In addition to the design, building and testing of the team’s robot, this competition emphasizes the teamwork, sportsmanship, diversity, and school/community support necessary for success.
Materials must be the work of the students. Involvement of student journalists, photographers, artists, musicians (serving in auxiliary roles in support of their school’s BEST team) is encouraged. Teams are evaluated in four categories:
- Project Summary Notebook, the documentation of the project including photographs, drawings, etc. must be submitted on Practice Day.
- Marketing Presentation given by each team within a 25-minute time frame to a panel of judges.
- Team Exhibit/Interviews of team promotional efforts for BEST within their school and community, and interviews to assess the students’ enthusiasm/multi-grade level/student as prime designers and builders of their robot.
Robot Performance based on total team points earned during the seeding competition.
Project Summary Notebook
Lori Jenkins, John Huffman, Tom Gerlach, Carla Aldridge, Crystal Morgan, Charles Hemminway, Kathleen Barth, John Matthew, Lisa Riley, Clint Schneider, Linda Manfull
Marketing Oral Presentation
Frank Barton School of Business - Alexander Ziegler, Charles Martin, Lynn Matthews
Team Exhibit and Interviews
Alexander Ziegler, Ethan Lif
Founders Award for Creative Design by Textron Aviation
Wyatt Smrcka, Ron Morgan
Spirit Aerosystems Robust Machine Award
Bryan Jaax
Spirit and Sportsmanship
WSU COE Ambassadors
Top Gun
Awarded to the team that scores the most points in one match.
