A robotics team from W.P. Davidson High School in Mobile traveled to Washington, D.C. this week for one of the biggest honors a student engineering program can receive: a spot at President Barack Obama’s sixth and final White House Science Fair.
Three Davidson students, Jacob Bosarge, 17, Nolan Lenard, 16, and Rupa Palanki, 17, arrived at the White House to set up their exhibit and test their robot ahead of the April 13 event, where the president recognized the work of Jubilee BEST Robotics, the regional program Davidson’s team competes under. Robin Fenton, hub director of Jubilee BEST, escorted the students through the setup process. The team was scheduled to return April 14 to meet with Alabama Sens. Richard Shelby and Jeff Sessions and U.S. Rep. Bradley Byrne.
Getting to Washington wasn’t guaranteed. The team had just one week to raise the roughly $30,000 needed to cover transportation, hotel rooms and meals for about 45 participants making the trip. They hit that goal thanks to support from the Mobile and South Alabama community.
The White House Science Fair drew more than 100 of the nation’s top science, technology, engineering and math students, showcasing robots, prototypes and other projects aimed at tackling challenges from climate change to cancer research.
From a struggling program to the state’s largest engineering curriculum
Davidson’s robotics program has come a long way since 2004, when the school first decided to enter the BEST Robotics competition. At the time, the program had no tools to build a robot, no dedicated workspace and no engineering classes. Students and faculty turned to the community for donations to get the effort off the ground.
That initial push eventually led the school to create its EPIC Program, short for Engineering Pathways Integrated Curriculum. Today, Davidson is home to the largest K-12 engineering program in Alabama. Students there have access to 3D printers, CNC machines and advanced simulation software, and the school’s faculty and students now mentor other schools throughout the Gulf Coast region and Alabama’s Black Belt to help build interest in engineering.
The program’s success has translated into competition results as well. Davidson has won the overall BEST Award at the Jubilee BEST Robotics Competition and placed second overall at the South’s BEST regional championship, making it the highest-ranking team in the state.
What BEST Robotics involves
BEST Robotics challenges middle and high school students to build a functioning machine capable of performing specific tasks within a matter of minutes, using a kit of raw materials that includes plywood, PVC pipe, aluminum, piano wire and a VEX control system. Teams get just six weeks to design, build and program their robot.
The competition’s mission is to get students excited about engineering, science and technology, and to steer more of them toward careers in those fields. Along the way, teams also have to analyze and solve problems using the engineering design process, keep engineering notebooks, build a mock company and marketing presentation, and construct an exhibit booth to explain their work to the public.
Each year, Jubilee BEST brings together roughly 40 teams from local middle and high schools, about 1,100 students and more than 5,000 community members at the Mitchell Center in a competition designed to mirror real-world industry and engineering work. Teams receive their kits in September and have 42 days to complete their robots before competition day, which also includes “Shark Tank”-style spring games.