2022 Denver BEST Robotics Teacher / Mentor Institute (TMI) Workshop 

 Pre Class Reading and Exercises 
available online Sunday 12 June through Friday 8 July 
(approximately 20 hours effort)

3-Day Hands-on Sessions 12-14 July  
Tuesday & Wednesday, 8:15 AM - 4:30 PM,
Thursday 8:15 AM to 4:00 PM
We will start promptly at 8:30 AM each day

Teacher / Mentor Institute (TMI) is a FREE educational workshop for teachers and mentors who plan to support competing BEST Hub student teams. 

Click on blue Register Now! button to register no later than 29 June.  If we do not have 4 participants signed up by this deadline, we plan to cancel the workshop.

  We are offering 4.0 CEUs (current estimate) to qualifying teachers via Community College of Aurora. The CEU document fee is $35 for 2022. To receive the credit, quizzes and exercises from both pre-class material and Hands-On Session are required.  More instructions to be provided on how to apply to receive credit and pay the fee.

 3-Day training at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Littleton near W Mineral Ave and S Santa Fe Dr.

Please forward this invitation to your mentors and teachers! 

Additional details below including a detailed map.

The TMI WORKSHOP uses both Pre-Class reading and exercises for background material and 3-Day Hands-On sessions to build and compete with a mini robot built by participant teams to prepare you for this year's competition.  The workshop is designed to be a shortened version of the 8-week (prior to pandemic 6-weeks) student BEST season. Participants use BEST returnable robot kit electronics and mini robot consumable kits to build their robot and use provided easyC software to program the control of the robot. 

We expect to provide an email with instructions to obtain and load an easyC software license prior to the workshop.  

Pre-Class Work:

We will provide a link to the pre-class instructions and material by 12 June.  The online website reading and viewing material includes the following topics:  

1. TMI Workshop Introduction - including BEST Robotics Competition and Safety
2. Engineering and Engineering Design Process Introduction
3. Software Introduction - including easyC programming
4. VEX Robotics Introduction
5. TMI Workshop Robot Competition Rules
6. BEST Engineering Notebook and Judging Introduction
7. BEST Critical Design Review Presentation (CDR) Introduction

 3-Day Hands-On Sessions:

Hands-on sessions focus on using the Engineering Design Process to design, fabricate, program and test, and improve their mini-robot. Participants learn about the awards and judging process with peer review of mini-engineering notebook. Closing out the workshop are additional BEST season details and panel discussions with experienced BEST teachers, mentors, and students.  Click link for detailed DRAFT agenda - minor changes may occur.

We are planning to provide lunch and ask you to bring a beverage.  Attendees are asked to bring - if available - a windows laptop and basic tools (e.g., electric drill, screwdrivers, wrenches, small saw, scissors, clamps, and tin snips) AND your phone chargers.   

SAFETY  INSTRUCTIONS: We will follow the COVID-19 protocols in place at the time of the workshop.  We will provide additional instructions.