Gateway Experience

PBL (Project Based Learning) 2024 Championship - National Taipei University of Technology - Taiwan

I had a chance to represent UC at the 2024 Project-Based-Learning (PBL) Championship in Taiwan. Students from different countries and universities are assigned to separate teams. Each team has one representative of the participating universities and competes against each other in a robotics challenge. This year's challenge was to sort white and collect red and green blocks using an Arduino Robot and Pixy V2 Camera.

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Despite meeting for the first time, the chemistry between team members was astounding. Since most of my teammates and I are optimistic, extroverted, and outgoing, we made close friends in a heartbeat. We have three Japanese teammates, and all of us supported them even if their English was hard to follow - because I believe respect is a fundamental part of effective teamwork.

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Although our team went along well at first sight at the opening party, there were some challenges that we had to overcome as a team. Our Japanese teammates were not fluent in English, so we had to rely on one teammate who knew Japanese and English to explain complex theories. In addition to that, there were a lot of problems with the hardware and electronics, which led to conflicts of ideas between the team members and impaired our team spirit.

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Seeing the underlying problem that our team was facing, we decided to slow down and have a heartfelt discussion to identify what we should do together as a team to improve the situation since honesty is the best solution to the conflict. After we resolved it, we came back and collaborated flawlessly. Even my Japanese teammates were willing to learn more and contribute further to our goal. We gave constructive criticisms and helped each other to grow as engineers. Although we only made it to the top 5, the judges, professors, and other students acknowledged us to be the team with the "Best Teamwork" award. 

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​​​​After this memorable experience, I learned that effective cross-nation collaboration requires crisp communication and mutual respect between the members. In addition, everyone's opinions and backgrounds should be acknowledged and appreciated to establish a friendly and constructive environment while keeping it competitive and efficient. I applied my experience to every team project at UC, including in my research co-op, UC Robotics Club, etc. I always listen to my teammate's ideas while explaining mine clearly; therefore, we can reach a clear goal and achieve it as a team.