By Nicole Thomas
The SHS RoboJackets dominated the competition in their quest for a fifth state title in the Mississippi BEST Robotics championship held at Humphrey Coliseum on October 1.
Amid a deafening crowd ignited by the most competitive field in history – 26 teams from Mississippi and Tennessee – the SHS RoboJackets meshed the talents of 61 junior engineers to win their 5th straight state title in the 2016 MS BEST Robotics Championship at Mississippi State University on Saturday. In addition to the grand prize, SHS was awarded Best Robot, Best Marketing, and Best Booth. The RoboJackets also earned 2nd place honors for spirit and sportsmanship and their engineering notebook.
For the Robojackets, six weeks of intense work to design, develop, and test a robot cumulated with the grueling 8 hour competition where servos, programming, and gears replaced slam dunks and three-pointers at Humphrey Coliseum during the 2016 MS BEST Game Day.
“We had great showings in all areas of the competition,” said RoboJackets CEO Jacob Wubben. The RoboJackets must now shift their focus to the regional contest. “We want to take what we did at state, improve upon it, and have another great showing at regional in Auburn,” added Wubben.
Coach Denise Adair agreed with Wubben. “We have 8 weeks to improve what we did at state,” said Adair. “We want to defend our regional championship from last year.”
Next stop for Robojackets: The South’s BEST Regional Robotics Championship in December at Auburn University where the Robojackets will defend their 2015 Regional BEST Overall title.