BEST Robotics was founded in 1993 by two engineers from Texas Instruments, Ted Mahler and Steve Marum. They were guides for Engineering Day in Sherman, Texas. With a group of high schoolers, they watched a video of freshmen building a robot at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The students were so interested that Mahler and Marum decided to start a local robotics competition.

The first competition was held that year with 14 schools and 221 students. BEST has grown tremendously since then, adding three to four hubs annually. Today, BEST Robotics includes about 50 hubs and over 850 teams.

For more on BEST history, visit the history page on the BEST website.