2020 BEST Robotics Season Details

  • NEW!!!!  As before, all UIL teams must compete in the BEST Award.  Advancing teams will come from classroom hub competitions or 3D virtual hub competitions.  No Texas hubs are hosting a physical event this year.  Fee for UIL teams this year is $100. 
  • The championships will be held using the classroom or 3D virtual for game play depending upon how each team qualified.  
  • The number of teams to advance won't be determined until we have a final count of the number of teams from your kickoff events.  The same advancement criteria as in prior years will apply.
  • We want to stay close to our original scheduled dates of December 3-5.  Therefore, we requested the following for all hubs with UIL and Texas BEST teams.
    • Hubs should have their season complete 8 weeks from kickoff.  Note this is NOT the same number of weeks recommended by the game committee, but we have date constraints that the other two regions do not.
    • If hubs have kickoff no later than September 19th (3rd Saturday), the 8 weeks puts the finish date at November 14th.  Advancing teams will get 1 week to submit their updated notebook.  That takes us to November 21 and gives a break until after Thanksgiving.
  • We want to spend the time between November 28 and December 3/4 judging the online components of the BEST Award and the CDR.  Our plan is to have those portions complete before we get into game play.
  • We aim to start game play around Dec 4 and continue through Dec 5 (or later if we really need to do so).  We have not completed the detailed schedules to determine if everything for BA judging and game play will fit into this timeline for the championships, so this may change.
  • We will hold 8 seeding rounds for the championships.  We plan to live streaming the game play action.
  • We will not have wild card, semi-finals, or finals matches for the championships.  Most of our teams are BEST Award teams (for UIL it is all of them), and the finish order after the seeding rounds is what determines the robot performance for that award.  The 8 seeding rounds to determine the top teams applies to Texas BEST game only teams as well.
  • UIL will recognize the top 3 BEST Award and the top 3 robot performance teams.  Texas BEST will recognize the top 4 in each category.  Other awards are planned but not yet final.
  • We do not yet know how to determine the top robot performances when comparing classroom (physical robot) with 3D virtual game play (no physical robot).  Stay tuned as we will post here when finalized.
  • We would like to have at least 2 trusted agents for each team during classroom and 3D virtual play.  This should speed up reporting scores and resetting the field.  It would be outstanding, if it is allowed, to have those agents be hub volunteers.  Regardless, all trusted agents will need training as referees and as field resetters.  Some compliance training would also be helpful.