Last July we received Byron, an American student of Mechanical Engineering at Texas Tech University. Here in Brazil he did an internship at SENAI C2I, the International Innovation Center at the national service for industrial training based in Curitiba.

Now that he finished his exchange program, we met with Byron to learn more about the experience he had during his staying in Curitiba, you can watch his interview or check it out below:

How is Brazil different from USA when it comes to Robotics?

Probably like the attitude of learning whereas the Lego at home it’s a hobby for me, whereas here it’s part of the learning experience in high school.

What was the highlight of your experience?

I think that the best thing about it was experiencing all the different cultures involved in it, you get to know the people who love their own country and then you can also get to know the rest of the culture experience from everyone else that is interning there as well.

What would you say to students willing to join the same experience?

In the beginning, just like, give up on thoughts of home, just go with the flow, see where the place is taking you. I mean, might plan one thing but miraculously do something else instead, not everything has to be structured.

We also interviewed Laura Padilha  and Alexandre Kloch  from SENAI C2I, to know how was the experience of receiving Byron at the company and luckily we received a positive answers from them:

What were the main activities of the intern?

Laura: Byron has worked a lot with our students programming Lego, EV3 and Mindstorms. Those students were able to share experiences with him and learn a lot about programming and specially about the mechanical assembly.

How was your relationship with the intern?

Alexandre: My personal experience was very precious! I felt really comfortable talking to him. We talked a lot about how things are in Texas, we talked about how things are here, like barbecue here and there. The technological part, how is here and how is there, we compared what they have there and what we have here to offer and I noticed that we have many similar things. Even when it comes to cultural, entertainment and gastronomical aspects, specially on the technical area, we have many similarities. They are working with Lego there and here we also use this tool. I believe that we are in a stage where Brazil is able to shorten the distance between cultures.

What was the goal of having Byron in the team?

Alexandre: Byron’s goal wasn’t programming Lego, his goal was finding an easily way to program Lego. The goal was him to find this expertise, this capacity.