March Madness Robot Battles
A March Madness Robot Battles team building event in downtown Miami Florida was a huge success!
People chose teams named after the top 16 teams in the men’s NCAA March Madness Basketball tournament. Each team was equipped with a classic Official NCAA Felt Pennant for each school. This immediately started the rivalries!
Teams first built the robots using a modified form factor that allowed the build time to drop from a total build time of 1 hour to an average build time of 15 minutes. This left plenty of time to have a complete tournament and keep the event at 1 hour. Team sizes ranged from 6 people to 12 people, with a lot of socializing and banter between teams.
The battles were classic 1 v1 – one robot versus one robot – school versus school, and structured exactly like the single elimination NCAA March Madness tournament. Teams that lost had the option to battle in the all-bots-in fun arena, or watch the tournament progress. Scoring was 1-point for popping each balloon, 1 point for pushing the other team’s bot outside of the arena, and 3-points for flipping the robot.
Our final was between Iowa State and Michigan, where Michigan jumped out to a 9-2 lead with two dramatic flips, and Iowa State came all the way back with a last minute flip to tie it at 9-9, and then Michigan had a last second pushout to win by 1 point 10-9!
Overall the event was an incredible “Power-Hour” complete with adrenaline filled competition and precision teamwork! Most importantly, everyone had a great time robot battling and/or watching the super competitive battles in the tournament!
