Robotics
Roles & Awards
Team Leader & Mechanical Engineer
HKUST Robocon Team · War Dragon · 2020
- ABU Robocon 2020 Regional (Hong Kong)
- Champion
- ABU Robocon Festival 2020
- First Runner-Up
- Best Presentation Award
- Special Award by Nagase Brothers Inc
R&D in Robotics
After the Robocon 2020 competition
Teaching Assistant
During M.Phil. studies at HKUST
Story
Joining the HKUST Robotics Team in my undergraduate year 1 was one of the experiences that most shaped how I grow as an engineer. Known for competing at a high level internationally, the team gave me a first real home in robotics — not only as a set of skills, but as a way of working with people under pressure.
In my first year I worked hard to earn a place on the Robocon sub-team. As a sophomore I stayed on for ABU Robocon 2020 (ROBO Rugby 7s), serving as Team Leader and Mechanical Engineer of War Dragon (征龍). From the outside, another HKUST championship can look inevitable. Inside the lab — with delays, almost-cancellations, and a season reshaped by the pandemic — nothing about it felt given.
I led a team of 15 team members to design and build high-speed robots for the contest. On competition day I was afraid until the scores were posted. Machines that had been reliable in the lab met a field that did not forgive small gaps, and with only a short on-site trial we had to change strategy in real time. We still delivered the only full-score run of the contest and took the Hong Kong championship. Even then, part of me measured the day against a stricter standard than the scoreboard.
Leading was never only about tasks. After months of hesitation, I took the role as a responsibility: to build a place where people belonged — through late nights, laughter, and hard conversations — not only a machine that scored points. I tried to keep the lab collaborative and open to new ideas, so creativity could survive the grind of iteration. Over those years I watched myself change, and so did the people around me; the work remade how I stood, spoke, and carried a group.
When War Dragon was announced as champion, the shout from the team said more than any ranking. We went on to the international stage and secured First Runner-Up at the ABU Robocon 2020, along with the Best Presentation Award and a Special Award by Nagase Brothers Inc. That season asked for meals, music, and time with family to be set aside; what we kept was each other. I am grateful to my teammates, mentors, family, and friends — and for a home we built together in the lab.
Those seasons also sharpened the craft itself. Across mechanical, hardware, and software work, I learned how tightly those layers have to move together — and that curiosity pulled me toward broader robotics research. After the contest I continued through R&D, carrying questions from the field into longer problems: how robots sense, decide, and act when the real world is messier than practice. That thread ran into my M.Phil. at HKUST, where competition engineering and academic research began to feel like one continuous craft.
During my M.Phil., I also served as a Teaching Assistant in the Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering. The role asked me to turn lab habits into teaching: debugging under pressure, explaining systems clearly, and helping students build confidence. Mentoring others brought me back to why the Robocon lab had felt like home — skill matters, but so does helping the next person find their footing.
Looking back, Robocon was where I fell in love with robotics — not for the medals, but for the making. That passion still shapes my research and teaching today.