Applied Materials Robot Build-Battle Team Building
An Applied Materials Robot Build-Battle team building event at their Santa Clara Headquarters engaged four teams in building and battle competitions.
Applied Materials is a company that produces equipment and services for the manufacture of electronic devices such as semiconductors, flat panel displays, and solar products. The company’s portfolio includes a range of equipment and solutions for process control, defect inspection, and metrology.
In recent years, Applied Materials has been investing in robotics technology for various applications in its manufacturing processes, including wafer handling, material transfer, and inspection. The use of robots helps improve the efficiency, reliability, and repeatability of these processes, leading to improved product quality and higher yields. Some of the folks building robots in our event had daily hands-on experience working with robots as a part of their jobs.
Change and unfairness were themes for the event, meant to prepare new hires for a business environment that does not necessarily reflect the university environment. Expect the unexpected, the unfair, the shrewd, and the unpredictable were themes that will be helpful to have success.
Luckily the robot battles event is ridiculously fun and engaging, which superseded any adverse affects of change, and enlightened the room with energy, thrill, cheering, comradery, and excitement!
The teams had 5-6 people each instead of the regular 8-10 people, so they were tasked with multi-tasking and multi-person activities. Despite this set back, the winning team posted an above average time of just 48:50 (Forty eight minutes and fifty seconds). Second place finished just 1 minute behind them, with teams 3 and 4 posting average times for 8-10 people (an excellent achievement)!
The battles were uniquely spectacular with fast paced smashing of air craft grade aluminum and parts flying about the arena (safely). We fixed and adapted the robots to keep working for several spectacular battles including a last-bot standing competition to determine the ultimate Battle Robot!
A huge thank you to Applied Materials for inviting me to your headquarters, and for the after event party invite to Puesto, where I ate perhaps the very best tacos ever!
