High School Robotics

In high school, I joined my school’s robotics team and spent 3 years on the mechanical team, spending most of my time as a machinist. While robotics does involve programming and software, it didn’t really catch my attention until much later because at the time I was definitely more interested in the design and mechanical parts that made up the robot. I worked on a variety of machinery and tools to create the components that made up the robotics structure and parts.

As part of the mechanical team, the attention to detail is crucial. Cutting parts that are off my .001 (the width of a sheet of paper) was unacceptable and had to be redone. My experience in robotics taught me problem-solving and collaboration with every aspect that went into making the robot come alive and made it operate in a variety of ways to accomplish and overcome obstacles that are important for competition.

Although I wasn’t part of the electrical team, I still gained a lot of experience for how the different teams like mechanical, electrical, and programming come together to create a functional robot. All the different teams collectively worked together to build a robot that was fit for competition by corforming to the rules and requirements which I believe mirrors how software projects are developed. Software engineers, programmers, and computer scientists all bring together their expertise to create a reliable program that meets their goal and comforms to industry standards. In both of these cases, success is dependent on the communication of each team, teamwork, integration, and proper testing.