What is MACH Robotics?

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  MACH is the Mobile Area Coalition of Homeschoolers, the local homeschool division of BEST Robotics. It's a non-profit organization which allows 6th-12th grade traditionally homeschooled⁽¹⁾ students to compete against other teams each fall. The season usually kicks off in early August and ends on the hub's game day in November, when teams compete in playoffs with their robots and present their display booths. During the season, the team becomes a mock company and creates the robot, marketing presentation, display booth, commercial, website, engineering notebook, and posters for game day. Teams which compete well enough in their local hubs move on to the regional competition at Auburn University in early December.

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How does it work?

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  The team meets in early August to vote for a President and a team of Visionaries, sign up for divisions, and choose captains of those divisions. 

 

Divisions include:

Robot – designs, builds, and programs a robot to complete designated tasks

Marketing – creates a business presentation to “sell” the robot to a panel of judges

Notebook – prepares an engineering notebook which details the making of the robot

Display – designs and builds a display detailing the work of the team and the “business”

Media – prepares a scrapbook and creates a newsletter, website, and commercial

Spirit - deals with public relations and leads team spirit on game day

 

  We meet as a whole team every Friday and then break off into divisions.  Some divisions (robot, notebook, and marketing especially) will need to hold extra meetings.  We do our best to accommodate as many people's schedules as possible.

  Kickoff day, when BEST unveils the field, is usually sometime in August at the school hosting the hub. In the 2022 season, we competed with Emerald Coast hub. In the 6 weeks that follow kick-off, our team will become a mock company.  They will build a robot, create a presentation to sell our company's robot, design and build a display to tell all about the company and its product, design and maintain a website, film a commercial, and complete other tasks as well.

  Finally, in October, we compete and earn points for all our different areas of participation.  If we score well enough at the local level, we continue to the regional level, which is usually held in early December.

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How can you get involved?

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  Follow us on our Website Blog and on Facebook for updates about informational meetings and sign up deadlines.

Sign up by our first team meeting in August. We would love to have your student on our team! 

 

  Please remember that we need parents who are gifted and/or willing to mentor each team. We also have to raise all our own funds. Spread the word in our community and see if you can find sponsors!

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