Software Techs Team Building with Hardware Strengthens Bonds
Software tech team building with hardware techs can have the amazing effect of bridging two sub-cultures into one cohesive unit, and therefore, a more enjoyable and functional customer experience. This was our experience at Facebook where we had a team building mixer between both a hardware and a software team.
We mixed up teams with approximately an even amount from both specialty areas. There was a total of 5 teams with 7 or 8 people each. The teams were named: team ThanksBot, team Optimists, team Robots4Humanity, team R2D2 and team High5.
There was record rainfall in Northern CA, but luckily we were nice and warm inside 1 Hacker Way in a spectacular venue located on the second floor overlooking the famous Facebook food court.
Everyone in this combined group of techs was especially competitive. Some teams boasted before the build competition that they would have “no problem beating the world record.” While all teams did really well, they soon found that the battle build World Record was more challenging than they had anticipated.
Team ThanksBot – pictured above – took the win in the build competition with an impressive build time of 30:14. Most teams finished shortly after and under or near 35:00 minutes total. Any build time below 35:00 minutes is approximately in the top 5% of all times from hundreds of teams over two plus years of robot team building events with the World Record on the line.
As one might likely imagine, everyone had a great time battling, and competing to get more points, pop more balloons, and flip more robots. Teams battled right up until the end of regulation, and would have gladly continued except there was other more pressing things on the schedule … they ended the day with drinks and catered food.
A huge thank you to this combined team of awesomely competitive techs that built robots lightning fast and battled until the “lights went out!!!” Great stuff.
Robot Team Building
