Scholarships Awarded to Winner of BEST Robotics Competition

The chapter came out in force to support the annual San Antonio Boosting Engineering, Science and Technology (SABEST) competition in October. The event aims to get students interested in the fields of science and engineering. Karen Rolirad, vice president of scholarships and grants; Ron Moore, treasurer; Nate Titus, vice president of special projects; Juan Toves, vice president of programs; Szu-Moy Toves, vice president of publicity, and Charles Weissenborn, vice president of Young AFCEANs, volunteered to judge exhibits and conduct informal interviews as part of the competition scoring. The theme was based on emergency services tasks, such as rescue, fire and hazardous materials response. Teams could only compete using the robots they designed and built with the materials supplied by SABEST. On competition day, 700 students from 38 area middle and high schools competed with their remote-controlled robots in a high-tech, high-energy game called "Crossfire." The chapter awarded two $2,500 scholarships to the graduating seniors who won the SA Best and Overall divisions. The SA Best Award recognizes inclusivity and diversity of participation, teamwork, engineering excellence and team spirit. The Overall winner is chosen from the winners of the SA Best category as well as the Crossfire competition. This year's SA Best and Overall division winner was United Engineering and Technology Magnet (UETM), Laredo, Texas.