By Alaina Denean Deshazo
The Selma Times-Journal

Students from areas schools filled the gymnasium at Wallace Community College Selma Thursday to cheer on their robotics teams as they competed for a chance to go to the regional competition in Auburn during the Selma BEST Robotics competition.

After cheering on her classmates last year, Meadowview Christian School 11th grader Jordan Wiltsie said she wanted to be part of the team this year.

“This year, we’re actually on the team, so we have to walk around and give out papers, tell people about what we’re doing and actually explain everything,” Wiltsie said. “I actually like it better that way that we’re on the team now. We actually get to see what we get to do with the robot.”

Wiltsie said she enjoys working with the robotics team and said her experience will probably help her in the future.

“I like the hands on, actually getting to build the [robot],” Wiltsie said.

“I think it will help me if I take business classes or if I want to go into engineering.”

The students have to prepare an engineering notebook, create an engineering booth and form a marketing team to all be judged along with the actual robotics competition.

Gaylen Denson, robotics instructor at Martin Middle School, said the competition is always a fun day for the students.

“The kids always enjoy coming down here and competing. They’ve worked hard over the last six weeks of putting together a good program, building the robot, presentation booth and actual presentation for judges to sell our robot and they’ve had a good time doing it,” Denson said. “They get to see the things that they’re learning in their regular classes, how it can be useful in different areas.”

Denson said they have been fortunate to go to the competition in Auburn before, and many of those former students are now competing at the high school level.

“We’ve probably got kids from our school on three different high school teams here competing today, and it says a lot from our program and how hard the kids are working,” Denson said.

Competing in robotics requires teamwork, and Denson said that’s the biggest part of it all.

“It’s all about the team,” Denson said. “They have to make the decisions on what they want to do, what avenue they want to do, as far as building the robot. Then they have to research it and then come together and decide as a team what they want the robot to do and how to accomplish that.”

Jarrod Blackmon, a senior at Dallas County High School, has been competing in robotics for a few years now, and said the competition is always his favorite part.

“This is my fourth year in robotics and every year it’s always hyped and fun like this. We always have a good team, [and we] just compete and try to go to Auburn,” Blackmon said.

“No matter what field you go into these days, there’s going to be some type of robotic involvement and it just helps you be more aware of it and helps you understand more about it.”

Evangel Christian Academy received first place in the BEST overall competition, followed by Martin Middle School and Selma High School.

Martin Middle took home first in the robotics portion, followed by Evangel Christian and Morgan Academy.

Evangel Christian, Martin Middle and Selma High will represent Selma BEST Robotics in Auburn Dec. 3-4.