Mechanical Engineer
FIRST Global
Olympics
About First Global:
The FIRST Global Challenge is an olympics-style, international robotics competition that takes place in a different country each year. FIRST Global invites each nation to send a team to build and program a robot to compete. Teams work together to complete tasks in a game themed around one of the greatest challenges facing our planet.
Team Mexico
The team that represented Mexico was chosen through an application process in which the best performing teams of the FIRST Robotics Competition took part. Authorities from Fundación Azteca selected the students with most engineering and robotics experience to be part of Mexico's national team. The team was directed by Manuel Gutiérrez Novelo, who is a co-inventor of the Blu-Ray 3D technology and pioneer in the virtual reality field.
The Robot:
The theme for the 2017 competition was water pollution, thus the robot needed to take water (blue balls) and separate out the pollutants (orange balls). This robot also needed to climb to a height of 1 ft. at the end of the competition. In total this robot had 5 important systems, a drive train, a storage system, an intake system, a shooter, and a climbing system.
My Job in the Team:
I was in charge of designing the mechanical systems on the robot, which included the intake of the robot, the climbing system, and the shooting system. Several iterations for each system were necessary, and I needed to learn new skills like 3D modeling in order to be competitive against the other teams. During the competition I was in charge of repairing any damage our robot sustained in the matches. On the day of competition, I also helped other teams like France and Bahamas create a last-minute robot so that they were able to compete.
Results:
At the end of the competition, the team received the bronze medal for the Zhang Heng Award for Engineering Design. This was the first ever medal earned by Mexico's robotics national team.