Stanford IT Team Event Cracks Code Building Robots
An IT Team Event for anyone at Stanford has to engage and challenge some of the world’s finest and brightest people. Information technology has many complicated facets, perhaps none more currently pronounced then the safety and security of our identities and our communications. If success at robot team building is an indication of good IT work than I would definitely trust my identity to Stanford. I actually said as much at the end of the event, to which they replied “thank you, but we already have your identity” … lol (hopefully)
Three of the four teams finished below 40 minutes with scorching robot build times, putting them in the top 10% of builders. Team “The Beast” (from Sandlot the movie) won best build team with a super particle accelerator like time of 37:50 (thirty seven minutes and fifty seconds). I noticed a key move early on that gave The Beast a quick early advantage. Although there are four equal parts to the robot, the resource allocation is not neutral. In other words, it makes a let of sense to put more resources on specific parts from the start, and then back fill later with parts that do not have immediate urgency. The Beast identified this aspect quickly, and placed two people to build the frame, leaving the electronics for a later investment.
Just behind The Beast was Team 2 with a time of 38:10 – just 20 seconds of the winning pace.
Team 2 and The Beast also dueled for most battle wins, being tied at 2 wins a piece with the other teams resting on a single victory. Down the stretch, The Beast reared its fangs and won the final two all-bot melee battles and notched a “last survivor” format to boot. The final score was The Beast 4 melee victories and 1 last survivor victory, over Team 2 with 2 melee victories and 1 last survivor victory.
The important thing is that everyone had a chance to battle and have a great time. Although not everyone can win, everyone does score points and feels the thrill of flipping another robot or popping balloons.
A huge thank you to Stanford IT for a fun Friday afternoon event in Palo Alto!
Robot Team Building