San Francisco Tech Team Building with Thumbtack
A San Francisco Tech Team Building event with Thumbtack on Sutter Street in the Nob Hill neighborhood had teams build and battle robots. 25 people in three teams filled the Cartwright hotel with some skepticism at first, and pure joy throughout.
Teams Lorem Ipsum, >u, and RIP Alex competed to build the robot faster than each other and for the World Record. Team RIP Alex won the build competition with an impressive time of 45:15 (Forty five minutes and 15 seconds).
The battles were the best part of the event, as this group displayed an adeptness for robot flipping. We had 8 rounds of melee combat which team Lorem Ipsum was declared the overall battle winner with a tie breaking decisive battle giving them 3.5 wins, to 2.5, to 2.
We had a successful introduction of the “mod kit” – an additional set of materials teams can use to modify the robots after 1 complete cycle of melee combat. The teams had 5 minutes to add any modifications and be ready for a last bot standing competition. The modifications included flip protecting fins and plates, ram jam short and long jousting attack arms, side needles, and upside down attack arms. The final battles were exciting and they revealed the difference between the great idea, and the great idea that actually works!
Flip preventing fins seemed to work better than flip resistant plates, something that at first glance you may not suspect. However in battle the fins are placed outside of the balloon, whereas the large rectangular plate is mounted in contact with the balloons. The difference as it turns out is that the plate compresses your own robots balloons allowing for an easier pop – if not a self pop – whereas the fins dug into the carpet without compromising the balloons. Likewise longer arms were not necessarily better, as the strength of the supporting moving parts isn’t always adequate or ideal.
In the end team, team “<u” claimed the final last bot standing competition and a share of the victory pie.
A huge thank you to Thumbtack for an exciting event and for success with our first ever mod kit application!
Robot Team Building
