The CWB Association Welding Podcast
The CWB Association Welding Podcast
Skills Canada Series -Season 2- Episode 15 with Dillon Kong
The CWB Association has had the honor of working with Skills/Compétences Canada on a special Podcast Series interviewing WorldSkills Team Canada 2024 competitors and experts from across Canada to share their skills journey. Join us as we learn about their skills, celebrate their success, and cheer for our Team Canada as they compete on the world stage in Lyon, France on September 10-15, 2024.
Explore the world of mechatronics and what it takes to compete on a national stage with Dillon Kong, a key member of the mechatronics team, who shares his experiences at the Skills Canada National Competitions in Quebec City. Dillon gives an inside look into the blend of mechanical, electrical, and programming skills, essential for building small-scale factories. We also discuss the practical applications of mechatronics in industries such as automated assembly lines and the important role of companies in supporting these competitions.
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Website: https://www.skillscompetencescanada.com/en/
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Twitter: https://twitter.com/skills_canada
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/skillscanada
There is no better time to be a member! The CWB Association membership is new, improved, and focused on you. We offer a FREE membership with a full suite of benefits to build your career, stay informed, and support the Canadian welding industry. https://www.cwbgroup.org/association/become-a-member
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All right, I check, check. Good. So I'm Max Duran. Max Duran, cwb Association Welding Podcast podcast podcast. Today we have a really cool guest welding podcast. The show is about to begin.
Speaker 1:Hello and welcome to another edition of the CWB Association podcast. This is a special edition done in collaboration with Skills Canada National Competencies. So this last week we were live in Quebec City during the madness of what was Skills National Competitions. It was wild. And this podcast now is we're doing it online just after the show because, well, it was crazy and you just can't fit everybody in and it's madness. But we're going to continue interviewing people because this is a very interesting one for me and it's one that Saskatchewan has done well in the past. But this year it wasn't our year to be, it wasn't meant to be. So you know, we got Dylan Kong coming to us from Toronto, ontario, who's part of the mechatronics team. I am hi, hey, dylan, how you doing? Good, good, good. How are you good? So how was the skills week for you? You happy to be home or or do you wish you were still in Quebec?
Speaker 2:yeah, oh, a little bit of both. Uh, I'm happy to be back training, obviously, that's been on my mind. Quebec City is a wonderful city and it's really nice to go and support, actually, my next team, right. So we train here at Humber, where Paxton and I my partner, we're going to the World's competition, but the next team after us, who just recently competed in Nationals. We had to go support them, so it was really nice to see their training come to fruition. They did very well and it was really nice to actually meet the rest of Team Canada. Again, there's a bunch of us and it's really nice to meet people who are at the highest level in their trades.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you're from all over the country, like coast to coast to coast. So it's a really neat mix of people. I mean we've interviewed about 15 of you and I mean that's not even half the team. I don't think, no, no, almost, though. Yeah, now let's let the people know that are listening. What is mechatronics? So what is it that you do specifically?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so mechatronics, in terms of academics, is really the combination of mechanical, electrical and programming For the competition me, toomey, toomey and Paxson. We build small-scale factors, so anything from sorting parts for organizing, capping, litting, stuff like that. Because there are two of us, it is a very complicated program. So I know 10 to program and he 10 to build Together. We kind of push towards the end.
Speaker 1:Now, in terms of mechatronics, in like, uh, the real world, you know irl, you know. What would people with training in mechatronics do in industry, or what type of jobs would you be rolling out to do?
Speaker 2:yeah, um, so the people who graduate ours there's normally a couple avenues go to, so obviously, internal sales. You try to sell parts. Uh, you can go into integration. So you essentially try to bring in assembly lines into pre-existing lines and you try to make them function at a faster rate. And the biggest one is maintenance. So you kind of go into a pre-existing system so any car manufacturers, medication, food, packaging, and you essentially keep their lines running, so any automated assembly lines.
Speaker 1:That's really where we thrive so in my world, the welding world, there's a lot of automation, there's a lot of mechanized systems that are coming out semi-automatic and fully automatic. Generally, people in this industry will go into get some training, say from, like, one of the main robot providers or or you know and and figure out what to do there. Now with your training you're probably much more universal you can kind of pick up any system or any and it doesn't necessarily need to be specific to any one.
Speaker 2:I guess uh product exactly so the idea of mechatronics, especially in our training, is you kind of have to be able to think as a whole. So any robot, any PLC, any vision system, whether you're doing bin picking or line tracking, conveyor tracking, really any system you're thrown into sensors, IO link, really any of them you should be able to figure yourself out and you should be able to get to the end out. And you should be able to get to the end, and that's kind of what we're trying to go for. So it's very general outlook on everything and they kind of teach you how to think, opposed to do specific things in order.
Speaker 1:So that's a big umbrella of stuff right Now. How do you shrink that down to make a competition at the skills?
Speaker 3:level Like how do you take that?
Speaker 1:large. You know the skills level. How do you take that large breadth of skill sets and create something that is number one, small enough that you can break it up into teams, floor space and actually compete?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so there's a lot of ways to do it. So first thing is we're special. We get two people right Us and landscaping. We're one of the special teams, so there's two of us, so that gives us double the manpower there's already. You can do a bit more.
Speaker 2:Um, if you're familiar with the company festo, they supply everything. So that also limits the catalog of what mechanically can be built. I see that's kind of it. So from the festo catalog you can kind of build a competition around that. The program is a program you can just make it up on the go and you kind of program it. But mechanically, if you're kind of restricted to one set of things in terms of uh, systems that they have to offer, you can kind of limit the size of it. Now, if you know festo, they don't do, they have their. They call it the didactic line and it's their educational line. So they're still industrial components, they're just to a smaller scale. So everything, everything we do, can fit, I would say, in the luggage maybe Big luggage, obviously, for space. Right, we're not building cars, we're kind of the closest I could do is we have little pucks and we're kind of putting chocolates together and organizing them.
Speaker 1:Well, I was going to ask you what was it like? What's a specific example of this year's competition at Quebec. What were the teams there being tasked to do?
Speaker 2:uh. So I didn't compete. But from what I heard, what I kind of overheard from the uh competition there were. They're a team of assemblers or integrators and they were tasked to. They were sent to a company to build their system for them. Essentially they already had one preexisting. So that was day one. Day two, they came back into the company and they went. We really liked how it ran, but we're actually running out of floor space so we need you to shrink it all down by half the footprint. So that was their challenge.
Speaker 2:It was keeping, and this is like a mythical company, right yeah yeah, exactly, it was kind of just a you know make-believe um, but the festival components are still the components. So, uh, the guys who go training, they're always familiar, hopefully, with the entire catalog and so when you show up to competition, because they'll never tell you we're going to do, you're kind of hoping you've trained enough and you can kind of make your way through whatever they've given you yeah, what did you do your year?
Speaker 1:Because you know to be on Team Canada. You've been through this a few rounds, now, right, there's a few rounds. You got provincial, you got nationals maybe a couple nationals, depending on your selection year and now you're getting ready for Worlds. But what was your? You know nationals. I assume you were in Moncton last year, it was.
Speaker 2:Winnipeg last year right.
Speaker 3:Winnipeg, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Winnipeg last year and you won there. So what did you have to do in Winnipeg?
Speaker 2:I don't remember them giving a story, I'll be honest. It's been exactly a year. The only thing I remember then was they were trying to introduce supply chain issues, so they didn't give us all of our components immediately. They said, oh there's, I don't know, a train went down. We can't give you all the stuff, so you're going to get it in three hours. You kind of have to plan around that. So that was really interesting because normally off the bat you get everything. You get a box, it's sealed, you open everything up. This one was kind kind of something's going to show up later, so you're gonna have to plan yourself around that and make a a new game plan around that.
Speaker 2:So story-wise I I think there was chalk and some vault, maybe it's all a blur out of my mind now yeah, exactly, um, but for us yeah, that was, that was our nationals we have our provincials. Our school also hosts our own internal competition, so we kind of have to beat our own teammates in order to go to provincials and then paxton well, it's actually really.
Speaker 2:It's really nice, uh, because it just adds more competition. Um, and then we also went to france last september to compete in the french nationals, so we were very fortunate to go. And how'd you do there? Unofficially, we participated, we were just showcasing, um, we did quite well, score wise, we, uh. Good, we're happy with it yeah, good.
Speaker 1:Good now, you said that this is one of the unique um competition pieces of skills, because you have a partner you know. So who's your partner? How did you guys meet? Or you know him or her. Yeah, how did you decide that you will be a team like, how did this all play out? Because as soon as you had another person, it's uh, there's now some dynamics you got to work out yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:Um. So, like I said, in terms of the skill, it's always been a two-man job ever since I don't know whenever it started 2001, and I think it's just solely because you can't do anything as much in terms of complexity. If you're a one-man show, it's, it's, it's just solely because you can't do anything as much in terms of complexity. If you're a one man show, it's it's, it's too difficult, it's too much to do. So there's two of us now, right? So one of us kind of programs, one of us builds, and then we're obviously very versatile. We can go back and forth.
Speaker 2:Paxton, um, he's just another competitor like me. Essentially, our school is very, very competitive. We have a huge pedigree of winning and so we kind of just ended up together because he was the best mechanical and I was the best programmer, and that's kind of how our team is built Technically. He was my third partner. I've had two before me and it kind of just goes as people come in and graduate and so on and so forth. You just pick up the guy who's the best really is what it comes down to, and as long as you guys have the same goal of winning worlds, you kind of work well and him and I, fortunately, we work very well together and we're kind of just lucky. But really we just met because we were both excelling in our fields.
Speaker 1:So this was not the partner you won nationals with.
Speaker 2:Oh, sorry, okay, holds. So this was not the partner you won nationals with. Oh, sorry, okay, sorry um the stretch of winning that we've most really easily, most recently done provincials and nationals, it's been with pakistan. I can't okay okay, but I have been competing before that and I had a couple more partners.
Speaker 1:Yeah okay, cool, yeah, so let's go back to when you first enrolled into this program. So tell us about the mechatronics program at Humber. What is it? How do people like? How long is the program? You know, what kind of things do people expect to do in it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so Humber College, if you're looking at the campuses, will be on the north campus by the Pearson Airport. The full name is Electromechanical Engineering Technology. So big, long name. There's a couple options. You can do your co-op options. You can do your co-op. You cannot do your co-op. You can also make it a two-year program or three-year program.
Speaker 2:So your first two years are exactly the same. You learn the basics doing your math. You learn, uh, the basics of plc, robotics. Uh, you learn your mechanics, you learn your physics, so everything that'll kind of get you. Then you learn your programming.
Speaker 2:Most people will go into the two years, will end up as technicians and they'll go into the maintenance roles. The people who stay for the extra year will start to specialize. So you start to do the advanced programming, the advanced plc programming, advanced robotics. You kind of go into depth of things. You start to learn vision systems and stuff like that. From there most people graduate the three-year, which is what I uh Paxman are both in.
Speaker 2:You end up going into the bigger role. So, uh, sales, uh, what I want to do is uh integration and you kind of become a more of a specialist so you can do more um program wise. It's kind of like any other mechatronics it's. We do a little bit of everything right, like I said. Um, anything you think of in STEM, we'll have touched it at least once, and you kind of become a millwright in terms of just mechatronics. So you learn everything right, like I said, mechanical, electrical and programming. But I don't want to compare myself to millwrights because I know they know what we know, so they're the true jack of all trades, right.
Speaker 1:Now, how did you find yourself in this program? Because I wouldn't say that. You know, you go to a class of grade sixes and you say you know who wants to be in mechatronics, and someone puts up their hand and says me, me, me. You know? How did you find yourself in this?
Speaker 2:program, kind of that kid. I've always loved robotics in some sort of capacity, so in grade middle school would be grade 7 through 8, and then grade 9 through 12. So middle school and high school I did robotics. So I was on a robotics team for I guess, six years From there. Your options are kind of limited in terms of what you want to do for robotics. So you can do robotics engineering.
Speaker 2:Mechatronics at the time was a pretty new program it still is and so I kind of knew engineering was kind of the route, something along there. Both my parents are also electrical engineers. I have uncles who are engineers, so my family's kind of focused Super engineered yeah, we're very one-sided. So I kind of knew Essentially out of high school I went to university. Actually I went to carlton for electrical engineering, decided it wasn't for me. I just didn't do enough hands-on. I kind of didn't have the foundation of robotics that I wanted. So that's where I switched. I kind of found humber. They had a nice program, they had a very successful skills team which allowed me to continue to compete. That's kind of why I came here, just because I'm very competitive. I love it.
Speaker 1:Well and that's one of the keys to being a good skills competitor is to just have that competitive nature in general. I always tell the story like I went to Kazan for Worlds with my competitor as a welder in 2019. And he was a motocross champ outside of welding, wow, so like. So that actually took a big part in the decision making of selecting him, because we wanted someone that really understood the nature of competition oh, you know and and it's something it's it's deeper than just liking to win. It's a different thing.
Speaker 2:It's it's the need to win.
Speaker 1:I understand I get it, yeah, yeah now for you, you know, going to university and lacking that hands-on, you know aspect of it. That's kind of one of the big things that we kind of promote at skills in general, whether it's through skills Canada, the skills for success model that they have, all the different committees and programs that they offer.
Speaker 1:It kind of always comes back around to saying, yes, there's a university, but if you like to do that stuff with your own hands, you kind of got to go down this path. What did your parents think when you said I don't want to go to university, I want to go into a college, I want to get my hands dirty.
Speaker 2:They've actually been very supportive. They don't necessarily care how I get to. It's more about being happy with what you want to do. The story I've always been told is do what you love and the money will follow, and it's always been like that. So if I want to go engineer, I'll go engineer. If I want to go engineer, I'll go engineer. If I want to do college, it's college. The stigma is actually from high school. Everyone I know, all my friends, we all went to university first and then a couple of us went to college and so on and so forth. So it started out as that was the main option, especially if you want to do well and then you start to realize this isn't for me or I'm not enjoying it and you're just kind of in a bad place. But you're not happy. You realize the jobs I'm going to get won't make me happy sitting at a desk and that's kind of where I went off. But university started mainly just because everyone else is kind of doing it.
Speaker 1:I had the same issue. I went to university and I realized I was in. I went for computer science and I realized I was going to be cubicle life. I realized I was in, I went for computer science and I realized I was going to be cubicle life. And I'm not cubicle, cubicle person.
Speaker 3:I'm just not I like to.
Speaker 1:I like to talk to people and to be creative, and it's a different type of creativity and I think that that's that's the common theme throughout the entire skills journey is that everyone there um likes to get involved. You know it's. There are a lot of thinkers that aren't just happy with knowing the theory. They want to see it in action, they want to be a part of that build and correction and development, and that's really important in industry, you know, to have that understanding.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, yeah, yeah, you find that a lot. When you start meeting people who are similar-minded, it becomes a bit more obvious.
Speaker 1:So how deep were you in the program at Humber when all of a sudden someone came up to you and said hey, are you interested in competing for skills? Or were you already at the front door being like? I already competed in high school? I want to keep competing. How do I get on the team?
Speaker 2:I'll be honest. So from university to college, the switch had nothing to do with competing, it was more just how do I get my career to be where I want it to be? Competing ended up being a bonus per se, and then I was really persuaded to join when my program coordinator came up to me his name is Lars, great um, and he just goes. It's a chance for you to compete in something that'll allow you to essentially further your career, right? So my idea I competed, I played sports in university too, and you end up going this is kind of fun, it's not gonna. I'm not that.
Speaker 3:0.01 right, I'm not playing professional anything no and I get it this is fine it's.
Speaker 2:It's a yeah, it's a dream that was crushed years ago.
Speaker 1:And you can play sports until you're an old man in a non-competitive nature Exactly.
Speaker 2:It barely sounds way better. So it was more of the companies who are involved, the bursaries that are involved. The skills that you learn will all apply during school and after school and they kind of go. What you learn here will actually make your class kind of boring because we'll teach you them. First. I was like this doesn't seem like I'm just spending time doing something else. It actually seems like I'm adding value to my education, and so that's the biggest reason I started joining and then I realized, wow, this is so much better. I actually get to compete in something I love to do, prove that're you know the best, and then go from there.
Speaker 1:yeah, and when you signed up or when you had that kind of tap on your shoulder, it was like all right, we're gonna, we would like to have you compete or be a part of this competition process. You know, you must have felt like it was coming full circle, because you already did like to do it, kind of stepped away, yeah, and it kind of fell right back on your lap again, yeah no, and I completely agree the words.
Speaker 2:Those words are exactly how I thought it's like. I said it's not something I sought after, it's kind of just happened and it turns out. I love doing it and it helps me per se, right it's. It's getting me all this recognition after school, after I mean the schooling um companies recognize it. It's going to help me in my mechatronics career and I'm just having so much fun like I'm spending right now about 40 hours a week training and it doesn't feel like a full-time job and that's why you know it's just so much better so are you right at the end of your uh age?
Speaker 1:because for the people that are listening, you age out of Worlds, and it sounds like you've been in this for a while, so you must be right at the cusp Well so for most of us who train for Worlds, you start in first year.
Speaker 2:So I'm in my third year. I'm actually almost done. I graduate in August, so I'll be done pretty much soon. But because I went to university first, I am older than most people, so I'm 24 now, returning 25 this summer. The world skills because again we are special, we get two people. We also get a new age limit, so our age limit you can't turn 26, so I'm good. So you're right under the gun by nine months and your partner?
Speaker 1:is your partner same age as you or younger? He's younger, so he's he's 19, so oh, he's just a young lad yeah so how much of a mentorship role do you feel you have in this now, because they can go on to compete for many more years yeah, um, I don't know about mentorship.
Speaker 2:I think it's more of a give and take. Obviously it helps to be uh, it helps have the two perspectives and obviously it's only a five-year difference. So the grand scheme of things, it's not that big a deal. Um, he's very smart, he's very competitive and I would say he's more dedicated than I am. Um, but really what comes down to it is no matter the age, I don't think it matters. It's really comes down to the drive that you have to win, because once you go to Worlds you can't go back. Right, I understand he's 19. You can't go back. So him and I are putting everything we have into this, and I would have done it with anyone else and I'm assuming he'd do the same.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Now how do you feel about your chances? You said you had kind of a practice run in in france and I'm still trying to figure out how to get myself to leon, because I want to be out there and watch it all I've been to a couple world's ones and I'd like to go to another one.
Speaker 1:But how are you feeling? Are you feeling like top three? Are you feeling like you? You got it because I mean, I watched all the the fresh crop in quebec last week. You know all the different trades and you can see ones that are doing good and you can see ones that are doing great.
Speaker 2:Right, it's aggressive how much disparity of skill there is. So first off, France, Lyon, beautiful. The venue is wonderful, Wonderful place. In terms of ranking, we don't know right, Based on the competition, there's a new pair every year, so we're kind of hoping. Based on history, the Asian countries kill the three Chinese teams. The Koreans, the Japanese great, the Brazilians were good, the Germans are good. The Swiss won the last Worlds. So we have the guys we're kind of looking out for, but we can't really do much about it. So we're kind of just going. We're hoping we're kind of looking out for, but we can't really do much about it right, so we're kind of just going, we're hoping we're doing enough and going from there. We've heard the Chinese team's training 100 hours a week. Our building's only open 98, so we can't even hit that mark right, and for two years in a row, probably already.
Speaker 1:Oh exactly.
Speaker 2:So you have your guesses, you have your hopes From our school. The best we've done in Worlds is third place.
Speaker 1:Which is amazing.
Speaker 2:They did very well. Kazan, our school went and we got sixth, I believe. So we're kind of hoping to beat them, just to rub it in a little bit. But we don't know. We have our hopes, we have our guesses, but honestly it's a complete gamble because you don't know what. We have our hopes, we have our guesses, but honestly it's a complete gamble because you don't know what you're going to do. I wish I could say we're going to win, but I've never seen these teams.
Speaker 1:So how do you? You're talking about trying to training 100 hours a week. You guys are training 40 hours a week, but even at 40 hours a week, that's a full-time gig. What do you do every day? Even at 40 hours a week, that's a full-time gig. What do you do every?
Speaker 2:day. How do you find things to train, yeah, so it kind of goes back to the competition, right, because it's all of one company's catalog. You kind of have a, you kind of have you kind of know what you're going to do. So you kind of go into the catalog, you go, okay, you can use this, you can kind of use this and much like Lego sets, sets, you can build a new creation, and that's kind of what happens.
Speaker 2:So we have two great coaches, uh, nick and wesley, and they kind of create these new tasks and we just go through those, right, um, exactly, our team's been competing since oh one, oh two. So there's a huge back, uh, back order of tasks we can do, right, we recently did the um abu dhabi world's task, just for training. We have all the equipment, we have their tasks. So we just train it right. We, we call it a simulation, right, you kind of go, you're going to show up, you're competing, we're going to put you on the nice time. Do I go from there? Um, and we do that. We do other things, um, and we kind of do that from there. So it's kind of like trying to expose ourselves to as much as possible with as little time as possible. That's kind of what it is.
Speaker 1:So let's say let's dream big, you win. You're up on that podium, Gold medals are coming down, the Canada song's playing, tears welling up in your eyes as you realize, all the years of work are coming to fruition and also you're going to walk out of here, probably making like 200k a year or whatever job hires. Yeah you know, which is the goal, right, which is the goal? It is and it's, and I, and I see it all the time trust me world's winners even even world's competitors.
Speaker 1:In general, if you make it to worlds, you got a good job waiting for you, I'm excited what's the job that you're looking out for? Where does Dylan want to go work? What's kind of the dream that you're looking for?
Speaker 2:It's a good question. It's tough to say because of how many avenues our program has. I don't want to limit myself. Obviously I've always thought you know you could join a big firm like Magna. I know people who've worked on the Canadian space arm. The problem is you talk to them, they go yeah, but I also designed one bolt, you go okay great. Not so interesting.
Speaker 1:So funny story real quick. I did weld on the first Canadian space arm.
Speaker 2:It was literally one thing. Right, exactly.
Speaker 2:But, hey, I feel good about it. That's amazing. What a story. But then you go. It's a great job. I just kind of want to do more. Personally, I get bored pretty easily. So the two options are I would love to go to Germany and work for two years, just as a technologist, whatever. I just want to live in a different country. That sounds amazing, especially the birthplace of automation in Germany Wonderful. The other idea is integration in a small company, so you kind of become the startup jack of all trades. You got to do a little bit of everything, and that really interests me, like I've. I've done a bunch of projects here at work and being able to do a little bit of everything. Just you got to learn way more. It's so much more interesting. You kind of understand what you don't want to do. That's really what I'm still trying to figure out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, that sounds fantastic. Now, in terms of the skills themselves, you know, like the, when we talk about Skills Canada, the skills, competition skills, skills, skills in your life, you know, coming out of high school with the passion that you have to work towards this goal, what are the skills that you've had to learn, that you've had to improve, because obviously there are some skills that you probably already were great at. Those are the ones you're going to lean on, but then, during these competitions and during this process, you sure learn that there are some skills you lack.
Speaker 1:You know absolutely which which are the skills that you really have to dial in on and be like okay, I got to work on that.
Speaker 2:There's a couple that I can think of. First one is just being able to switch tasks quickly. So, like I said, I'm the programmer, but programming doesn't take the full six hours, so I'm normally done within 45 minutes. So I've got another five hours to do, five hours, 15. And I've got to switch my mind and I've got to go start building, and so I kind of join in and I've got to work with a teammate, which is somewhere I also used to struggle. I like being a one-man show. Sometimes, I like to do things on my own, I don't like to rely on people, and so those two together are the biggest things I think I've learned or essentially practiced, really.
Speaker 3:And I would think and hopefully gotten better at but you know there's always room for improvement.
Speaker 1:There always is. And you know collaboration is something that is hard to do when you're younger but is so key in success because, like, no one climbs the hill alone. You know what I mean. Like exactly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's I. Like I said, it's definitely something I've learned, and especially collaboration, but it's also the reliance on someone. He, him and I are specialists in our roles and we have to be reliant on the other and that's something that I just didn't come naturally to me yeah, you wanted to micromanage yes and no, it's more just. I don't even describe it, it's just. It's just something that had to happen. Right, I have to trust that he can do his job, and obviously vice versa.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and what about the reverse of that question? You know what were the skills in your life, early on, that you're like I'm really good at this. Where can I put these skills? You know, these are the things that I'm kind of you've always been strong at.
Speaker 2:Okay, you talk to anyone in my program, anyone that trades. They say they're good at troubleshooting. I've been. I think I've been okay at it my entire life, which has gotten me this far. Um, I'm pretty good at taking a problem apart and going from there. Yeah, and I think the consistency of being able to do that has gotten me here pretty far right. Robotics teams for this, any of the schooling have gone through, being able to take apart a problem essentially systematically. Yeah, it's a good. Yeah, I think I've been okay.
Speaker 1:I would also suggest that maybe you've always been competitive, because I sure get that vibe yes, yes, okay, yeah, it's, yeah you can say that.
Speaker 2:I'm very. I do like to say that, yeah, that's, yeah, that's been a thing for a while. I don't see it going anywhere soon?
Speaker 1:And what about your future with skills? Like you know, you've been a part of the skills family for a long time and I call it the skills family because there's, you know, there's the ptcs, the ntcs, the nac, the coordinators, the trainers the mentors. It's a vast network of people working together to make this happen yeah you've been through it on a number of levels now.
Speaker 1:Do you see yourself sticking around post worlds or is it going to be, you know, bye, sayonara, I'm going off to my world. Or do you want to still be somehow connected in skills? Do you see yourself having a role as some type of you know trainer or mentor?
Speaker 2:or whatever absolutely um, it's a good question, so like if worlds comes back to canada.
Speaker 3:Which they're really hoping for.
Speaker 2:Which I'm really hoping for I would definitely love to volunteer, just helping out. Keep that show running. That's an amazing responsibility, really. I think I see myself coming back and it would just be for my team the skills and the knowledge that I've learned on my journey. It's not worth the next person having to relearn it. The guys who've trained me um so, the guys who went to kazan, the guys who went to abu dhabi and the guys who everyone they always come back, like we do our saturday practices, and they come back and they give these little tips and tricks that I don't have to relearn. It saves me time and now I can focus on it and move on with my life. Stuff like that I think I would help the most in because the basic skills you know what I mean we can get everyone's school yeah exactly.
Speaker 2:It's more of the things that will help them become good world's competitors. I think that's what I would come back to do and, um, maybe volunteering if, if it comes back to canada, I would. I would love to go I would love.
Speaker 1:I would love it, yeah, and we better win every gold medal if it's here.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, yeah, exactly that would do good for Pride.
Speaker 1:Now what if here I'm going to throw a scenario what if you get a job in Germany right after this working for some R&D, robotics coolest job you could think of and then they announce that Worlds is back in Canada and the German Worlds team asks you to mentor them. What would Dylan do? That's a good one.
Speaker 2:So that's a good one. That's a very, very specific situation, because I know the German teams are sponsored by companies, so to have to be working for that company, right?
Speaker 1:I don't know, that's a good one that would be tough, like, um, I don't know that's a good one, that would be tough, like I don't know, like, I mean, it would be so fun on either side of that fence like I know I here's a thing if I'm gonna be in a country, I think I'll just help the germans.
Speaker 2:I'll be honest yeah, like I'm not gonna, I can't take time off work and I'll go back, but I can like. I had a coach who went to Poland for a while. He still called me and he still helped me out, so I'll do the same, obviously. Uh, but the Germans, like I said, much like us. They are very competitive, so I don't know if they need me. To be honest, you know what I mean like they have the knowledge right. So awesome.
Speaker 1:Well, to wrap up the interview, just another question for you. You know what? If someone's young and looking to get into a mechatronics program, they're looking at you know the catalog and they're like, geez, I really want to be an engineer but I want to get my you know hands dirty. They're thinking about the mechatronics program. What advice would you give them about the program and like how to be ready for it and how to do well within that program?
Speaker 2:yeah, absolutely. Um, the first thing, just practicality. Try your best to pick a campus that's close, unlike university. You're gonna spend a lot of time on campus because you need to be here. University, most of the time, you can go home and you can study here. If you're gonna have a lab, you have a lot you have to be here. So, first thing, you don't want to travel, especially when your capstone comes around. You'll be here 12 to 14 hours a day. That's first thing, just practical level, because a lot of people don't tell you that.
Speaker 2:Um, after that it really comes down to if you want to go into it, you want to go into it. But if you want to do well, you have to really love step just in general. Obviously not the, the biology and the chemistry, because you won't be doing that, but the math and the robotics and things how, how, the basics of how things work and how to solve a problem, and going from there, working with your hands and actually putting your mind into something and then actually doing it. If you don't like doing that, it's not so much worth your breath. And, on another note, because it's a little bit of everything, you have to like a little bit of everything, because you will be programming. We'll be doing pneumatics, hydraulics, mechanical, electrical.
Speaker 1:So if you don't want to get electrocuted and you have a fear of it, maybe we went to mechanical I've had welding students sign up and then they say they don't like fire.
Speaker 2:It's like well, we may have an issue yeah, you'll get as much pp as you want, but you know you might want to get rid of that fear, yeah, so I I tell people if you're unsure but you want to, but you know you might want to get rid of that fear, yeah, so I tell people, if you're unsure but you want to go in this route, mechatronics is the best one to do because you got to do everything right. Like I said, being able to learn what you don't like is huge, and I think it's huge. So if you want to go into something and you kind of don't know, but it's something along the lines of automation or engineering, mechatronics is the best way to do it, because you get to do everything, whether it's college or university, because you can do it either way awesome.
Speaker 1:Well, thanks, dylan, this has been awesome any shout outs anything you'd like to say to anybody I.
Speaker 2:I heard paxton didn't get an interview, so I hope he's listening sorry dude hey, we didn't pick, the names were given to us. I know, I know exactly so no, that's it I. I really appreciate the opportunity.
Speaker 1:Yeah, awesome. Well, thanks a lot, dylan, for being on the show. I really appreciate you taking the time you too. Take care. Bye, all right, and for all the people that have been following along with the podcast, make sure you catch all the series. In total nine in French, the rest are in English. We try to cover as much as Team Canada as we could, and some board mentors and some mentors and some experts. It's been quite the row, but, like I've been saying to everybody, if you've never been a part of a national skills competition, go Go to the next one Next year. It's in Regina, saskatchewan. It's going to be wild. That's my backyard. I'll show you how it's done out here in the prairies and we're going to have lots of fun. And for the, for you guys in the in the world's team, you know, good luck in in leon. I hope we come back with a lot of gold medals.
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