Kendrick Bender believes that one of the best things you can do for yourself is to step outside your comfort zone. That was true during his time with MATE, and it still holds water for him now.

“Everything I’m decent at now started out as something I thought I wasn’t going to be able to do,” he said. “Then I surprised myself by finding out that I could.”

Kendrick works as a freelance 3-D animator—and if you’ve competed at the MATE World Championship the last few years, you’ll even be familiar with his work. He creates all the “Mission Fly-Through” animations, and it’s a project he looks forward to every year.

His first exposure to robotics was through a 4-H class when he was a kid. Kendrick grew up on a dairy farm in Maryland where he learned a lot about mechanical and electrical systems, so when the local 4-H offered a robotics class, he was immediately interested. He was hooked on programming and engineering from there on out and competed in First Robotics in high school. 

In his senior year, a mentor who had learned about MATE suggested forming a team. He competed with MATE that year, then helped form another team when he attended Garrett College. Kendrick says one of his favorite parts of MATE is that it’s such a challenge for kids who may not know much about underwater robotics and don’t have experience.

“It’s an incredibly powerful learning tool,” he said. “Participating in the MATE program is the best way to learn specific engineering processes while also learning how to work in teams of people.”

It was while he was involved with robotics that Kendrick first got interested in animation. He wanted to be able to explain a mechanism he wanted to build for his First Robotics team’s robot, so he taught himself how to animate. Later, he would do the same thing with his MATE team’s designs. Now he makes a living with his entirely self-taught skills—all because he learned how to push himself beyond what he thought his limits were.