Competitive Robotics

Four years of school robotics, from LEGO kits to Arduino and a funding pitch

Between 2016 and 2019 I competed in four robotics tournaments. The first three were LEGO-based — World Robot Olympiad in 2016, then FIRST LEGO League in 2017 and again in 2018 — building and programming robots to complete set missions on a competition table. The fourth, Smart-X in 2019, ran on Arduino and was judged in two halves: an autonomous multi-tasking vehicle built to solve that year's challenge, and a product case defending it to a panel — the problem it addressed, its community impact, a production budget, and a pitch for funding.