Davidson Robot Team Wins Another Competition

Davidson High School’s RobotEx team has been named “Best of the Best in the Southeast,” AL.com reports. It won the BEST Award, the highest overall award, at the South’s BEST (Boosting Engineering Science and Technology) Regional Robotics Competition last weekend at Auburn University. The team also won “Most Elegant Robot,” “Best Marketing Presentation” and “Best Exhibit Booth Interviews” and placed second in “Spirit and Sportsmanship” and third in “Most Photogenic.” Additionally, Davidson’s coach, Mike Fletcher, was named BEST Teacher of the Year. This is the second consecutive BEST Award win for the team. It topped 60 teams from Alabama, Florida, Tennessee, Mississippi and Georgia. The team’s robot, named “Kronk” after the character from The Emperor’s New Groove, was designed to assist in factory assembly, the theme of this year’s competition. Students also had to build a “field robot” that would interact with the main robot. Davidson was named “Squeaky,” which was controlled by being attached to Kronk’s arm.