Cisco Robot Build and Battle Team Event San Francisco
Cisco hosted a Robot Build and Battle Team Event in the Mission Bay neighborhood of downtown San Francisco near At&T Park. Wikipedia describes Mission Bay as “… a 303-acre (123 ha) neighborhood on the east side of San Francisco. It is bordered by China Basin to the north, Dog Patch to the south, and San Francisco Bay to the east. Originally an industrial district, it underwent development fueled by the construction of the UCSF Mission Bay campus, and is currently in the final stages of development and construction.”
Sure enough, an area of the city we new as kids for urban mountain bike riding and paint ball warfare is now “luxury condominiums, hospitals, and biotechnology and development” (Wikipedia) – or at least in process of becoming one of these. Since the railroads spun off this property in 1998 it has transformed into a modern super city – and is in transformation in a big way. Visiting Mission Bay looking for parking? “forget about it” – not gonna happen anywhere. Tip to those visiting don’t drive or if you do drive plan parking in advance. What few parking spots are available are snatched up by construction trucks lined bumper to bumper sticker starting at 5:00 AM.
Cisco resides in a spectacular glass structure floating above the bay like a modern city in a movie, and juxtaposed by lingering memories of Mission Bay’s past in the form of a gigantic shipping yard directly across the street.
The group we worked with were once a start-up of less than 50 people, and now are members of of a 76,000 person organization with decades of dominance and success – Cisco is the world’s largest networking company!
The team pictured above – self named “Kickass” – posted a respectable build time of 33:10 at the Robot Build and Battle team event, putting them safely in the top 10% of all teams who have completed the robot.
The battles were stunning – including three robot battle moves I had not see before; which is saying something! In one instance a robot was at one time flipped completely over, and then hit again, and in combination with a unique use – a timed motion of sorts – of the attack arm, it flipped itself back over and in process popped two balloons of the opposing robot; NICE!
Cisco lived up to its reputation for connecting people as the group had a fantastic time building camaraderie as they forge forward into new territory.
A huge thank you to Cisco for bringing us out! We hope to see other teams compete for the Cisco record – and possibly the world record – in the future.
Robot Team Building
