Engineering Beyond the Workplace

Engineering When You Only Get One Shot

My degree is in electrical engineering, and I have over 20 years of competitive robotics/mechatronics experience from various competitions. On the team, I maintain the electrical system of the robot, from wiring the electronics to battery management. I'm also involved in the mechanical design process as well as getting my hands dirty working on any parts of the robot.

When you're building a machine that weighs 250 pounds and has weapon tips reaching speeds of up to 250 mph, the ultimate challenge is validation and safety. Because we can't just take a new design to the backyard to see if it works, we have to mitigate risk through theory and preparation.

We rely heavily on rigorous mathematical modelling, scaled-down prototypes, and years of historical data to make highly educated engineering decisions before the robot ever steps foot into the box.

This process reminds of a semiconductor tape out. In both hardware engineering and heavyweight robotics, you really only get one shot to get it right. You cannot afford to make a mistake, because the recovery process is incredibly costly – both in terms of time and budget. You have to simulate, verify, and prepare relentlessly before you press 'go’.

A Moment I'll Never Forget

One of my proudest moments happened during the filming for BattleBots Faceoffs. Right before our match against the highly respected team Hypershock our primary robot actually caught fire during pre-fight checks. To make matters worse, we didn't have a clean backup chassis ready to go. In a span of just a few hours, the team had to rapidly diagnose the failure, salvage components across multiple other damaged robot chassis, and essentially rebuild an entire 250-pound combat robot from scratch.

Not only did we manage to make it to the arena before the clock ran out, but we won that fight against a world-class opponent – and ultimately went on to win the entire Faceoffs bracket. That level of intense team resilience, mutual trust, and engineering execution under an extreme, absolute deadline is easily my proudest moment.

That experience reinforced something I have seen repeatedly throughout my engineering career at Renesas: great outcomes are the result of teamwork. When everyone trusts each other, and focuses on the solution, even the toughest challenges become manageable.

Lessons I've Learned Along the Way

One of the most valuable lessons I learned from this competition which is also valid for my work at Renesas is to celebrate the small victories and accept that you simply cannot control every variable. You can have the most advanced technology, a flawless build, and the best driver in the world, but there is always a non-zero chance that an opponent hits you in just the exact right spot to take you down.

Because of that, I realized it’s not strictly about the win/loss record – it’s about the pursuit of excellence and commitment to improve and learn from experience. The real reward is putting on the absolute best fight possible, matching your best engineering against your opponent's best engineering. That mindset applies just as much in engineering careers as it does in robotics competitions.

While there isn't always a direct line between my day-to-day work and a combat robot, the core engineering mindset is identical: the devil is entirely in the details. Rigorous preparation and the ability to systematically debug a highly complex system under immense pressure are massive crossover skills. Ultimately, managing the intense, fast-paced stress of the BattleBots pits and relying on deep preparation has directly improved how I handle high-pressure situations with demanding corporate customers.

Advice for Future Engineers

In both cutting-edge industry engineering and high-tier robotics, it is never a matter of if something will go wrong, but when. You will inevitably run into brutal technical hurdles and find yourself in incredibly tight spots.

When that happens, your attitude toward the problem dictates your success. There is no utility in panicking or letting stress take over. I always think back to the Apollo 13 crisis – the ultimate real-world engineering emergency. When the spacecraft suffered a catastrophic explosion midway to the moon, Flight Director Gene Kranz famously told his team to calm down, sit tight, and work the problem based on data, not fear. He knew that panic leads to mistakes, and mistakes in a crisis are fatal.

When things get chaotic in the lab or in the pits, you have to do the exact same thing: slow down, isolate the variables, analyze the data, and execute. Remember the old saying: 'Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast.