The role
In my third year at UNSW, I took on the role of team lead for our Sumo Bots competition, overseeing the full development of our robot. This spanned mechanical design, electrical integration, and algorithm development, while also upskilling team members in CAD.
When it went wrong
A few days out from competition, during a test session, our motor driver caught fire. We had no spare, finals week was approaching, and as team lead I felt directly responsible for what happened next. It would have been easy for the team to panic or write it off, but I did not want that to be an option.
How I led the recovery
My first move was to keep the team calm and reframe the situation as a solvable engineering problem rather than a disaster. I broke the recovery down into clear tasks, diagnosing the root cause of the failure, sourcing a replacement component, and delegated based on each person’s strengths so we could move in parallel.
The outcome
By staying organised and leading collaboratively under pressure, we repaired and fully tested the robot before competition day. Beyond just getting it done, it was one of the most valuable experiences I have had in managing stress, coordinating a team, and solving a real technical problem.