Together with a group of high school students, they watched a video of freshmen building a robot in Woodie Flowers's class at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
After learning that a San Antonio group had formed a non-profit organization to support a BEST event, North Texas BEST mentored them in providing their own BEST competition.
In 1997, the four-year old organization established itself as a 501(c)3 non-profit corporation in the state of Texas as BEST Robotics, Inc. (BRI).
Its growth continued at a similar pace, spreading throughout Texas and neighboring states (Arkansas, Colorado, Oklahoma, New Mexico) and further (Kansas, Illinois, Kentucky and California).
[citation needed] In 2009, the program started its bi-annual BEST National Conference for volunteers and teachers.
The conference is held during the summers of odd years and provides a great place to share information.