Robot Racing with Marvell
Robot Racing with Marvell at our 6th annual team building was a huge success. 190 people and 19 teams each built a custom robot racer and traded with each other to improve the possibilities.
We utilized the same space as previous years when we built and battled robots with 12 to 14 teams. This year’s event was even more popular, which makes sense as Robot Racing is designed to appeal to a larger audience. Racing itself is a huge theme driver in attendance as people understand it, watch it, and many are fans of racing in general. In addition, the event itself is designed to activate more participation from al types of people.
The trading floor has really ignited the networking aspect of this event. In fact we heard from several different sales folks that they truly enjoyed the trading floor and it allowed them to do what they do best and enjoy the most; make deals with people!
The robot racers were spectacular with 19 unique versions of what the ideal racer should look like. Perhaps the the most fascinating version, if not the most efficient, came from the intern team which inadvertently traded away their front wheels, somehow managed to still obtain a set of Monster Wheels, and thus created “Crazy Wheels” – a two wheeled robot consisting of almost all wheels.
The winner of the race was the same team that won the robot battles – who has a professional “BattleBots” driver. We were hoping for a new winner honestly 🙂
However, having said that, I have to give it to the winning team. It was not so much prior knowledge or professional battle robot experience that gave them the edge. Instead it was a playbook on how to prepare for a TeamWorx event: they read the blog, read the event description, and looked at pictures of modified robots, all in advance. They scouted the track when we made it, and they were the first team to jump onto the trading floor, getting teams early before they had created their own plan. They were the ones that “traded” the front wheels away from the interns. So reluctantly, I give them major props and full credit!
A huge and gigantic thank you to Marvell for having us back again. We look forward to next year and an even bigger event!
