In its seventh year, The Woodlands Homeschoolers robotics team, Venture Crew 8
is well on its way to a great year. As a competitor in Texas BEST Robotics, the team has
6 weeks to design, build, and test a robot that will be able to function in this
year's game. 
In
addition to this, the Woodlands Homeschoolers have chosen to compete in the
B.E.S.T. portion of the game which involves writing a technical notebook, giving
an oral presentation, designing a table display, promoting spirit and
sportsmanship, as well as making of a team website.
As a 30-member team with students ranging in age from 11 to 17, The Woodlands Homeschoolers have found that in order to stay organized they must divide their team into a series of sub-teams under both the robot and the B.E.S.T division of the competition. Each of the students work in whichever sub-team most piques their interests and abilities to achieve better efficiency and accomplish specified tasks.
The robot division of our team divides up into a series of sub-teams that build the individual parts of the robot. The teams under this section are Chassis, Actuator, Manipulator, Notebook, and lastly Electrical. The students begin by brainstorming the game as a group and then they separate to work on specifics of their particular area of work. The BEST division of our team is also separated into smaller sub-teams including Presentation, Display, Public Relations, and Multimedia. As a whole, the team members learn to work with interior design, computer graphics and animation, technical drawing, public representation, management, public speaking, videography, photography, and much more.
A big part of the BEST award is displaying how we promoted BEST through fundraising, sponsorship, demonstrations and recruitment activities.
For more information on BEST Robotics in Texas, please visit the Texas BEST website.