5 months after our kickoff on the 1st November 2025, we hosted our annual robotics competition at Hills Road Sixth Form College in Cambridge. Our competition spanned 2 days over the 8th–9th April 2026.

This year was our biggest competition yet – we were joined by 16 teams from the Cambridge area, who made for a lively atmosphere. These competitors worked tirelessly over the past several months on their robots. Despite the countless problems they faced along the way, the result of their hard work was an electrifying performance in the arena.

Students completed several mini-challenges, both during the kickoff and over the months leading up to the competition. These came in the form of short, achievable tasks which were hopefully instrumental in helping them to develop the knowledge and skills needed to make their robots. For the students who took part – we also hope that you all enjoyed them!

As well as challenges, we provided the kits needed for the teams to build their robots. These consisted of a brain similar to a Raspberry Pi, a laptop, some assorted electronics, and some other really useful bits and bobs.

While not all of the teams who signed up could make it to the final competition, we’d like to congratulate everyone who was involved at some point. Building a robot is tricky, so well done to everyone who pulled it off. For the teams who didn’t, we hope you can use the skills you learnt this time to fully realise your robot-building ambitions next year!

We hope everyone who took part in the competition learnt something, found it inspirational, and most importantly had fun!

See you all next year!

Game Overview

This year we adopted a (perhaps macabre) Hunger Games theme. Teams designated tributes, or robots, to collect supply crates from the neutral zone at the centre of the arena. Periodically, the Capitol also generously gifted the tributes with supply drops, which fell from the Cornucopia above the neutral zone.

Upon delivering supplies from the Cornucopia into their home districts, tributes scored points – 1 for supply crates and 2 for drops. They scored additional points for moving the supplies into the starting area of their district. An extra multiplicative point bonus was given to teams who could stack their supplies on top of each other.

More information about this game’s theme and rules can be found in the rulebook.

Competition Highlights

Before getting into the prizes, we’d like to take a moment to celebrate some of our favourite moments in the competition.

This snail-like robot from Haydon crawled around the arena and stuck to supplies with its sticky suction cup!

The Little Devils’ robot pulled off a daring double stack of supplies! I hope their stack doesn’t get knocked down…

This robot triumphantly holds its cubes high! What a showoff…

We had a lot of tiny robots this year. Parkside had two notably cute ones. Here is CERC’s 4th-place tiny robot, peacefully hugging a tree.

Competition Awards

We again want to congratulate each and every team who took part for their tremendous effort over the past 5 months. We saw some amazing robots this year! While some may have been knocked out early due to bad luck or technical difficulties, we hope you can all take pride in the robots you built, and use what you learnt to make even better ones next year.

Now, for the awards:

Tribute Parade

This was the award given out by our sponsor Redgate, for the team who had the most pizzazz. There were some strong candidates this year, notably Swavesey, whose robot resembled a rhinoceros beetle with its long horn and pincers. Another robot bore the Hunger Games’ signature mockingjay emblem – a mutinous attack at the Capitol’s authority!

However, the team that ultimately won this award was the Perse. They built what was perhaps the most functionally-unique robot in the competition, which was to drive to the centre of the arena, then extend a giant blanket to capture all of the supply drops. Their blanket could be stretched out by telescopic metal poles, which shot outwards from the robot. The members of this team, clad in black capes resembling their robot’s blanket, adorned electric shock signals attached to their clothes and tinfoil hats.

Gamemaker’s Vision

This was the award given out by Frontier, for the team who demonstrated the most impressive engineering and programming in the competition – some of the key skills we value at RoboCon.

This year’s competition had a multiplicative point bonus for stacking supplies on top of each other. Of the 16 teams who arrived at the competition, only two were able to successfully stack these supplies. The Little Devils’ robot had a suction cup attached to an arm which would pick up supplies and attempt to stack them on top of each other, by tilting the arm upwards. They were able to successfully stack these supplies during one round, however their stack was tragically toppled by another robot.

The team who won this prize, however, were Stem Learn 2, whose robot pulled off an incredible triple stack during the final league round, by storing its supplies inside itself! Unfortunately, the robot drove the stack to another robot’s district right before the round ended! They were able to pull off another stack, however, during the quarter finals of the knockout rounds.

Mockingjay’s Choice

This was the award given out by Darktrace, for the team who demonstrated the most perseverance throughout the competition. Every team faced setbacks at various points throughout the competition, with robots like Heritage 2’s being unable to move on the first day of the competition.

However, the team that stood out this year was Swavesey. They, like many other teams, started out with a robot that didn’t work at all. As the competition progressed, they kept working on it, until they emerged with something which could reliably score them points, despite all their setbacks.

Third Place

In third place, the Little Devils won with their speedy robot, which zoomed around the arena. Their suction cup mounted to an arm allowed them to quickly grab supplies and deliver them to their home district, while also letting them stack them! Unfortunately for them, their robot got stuck in the final, driving too close to the walls of the arena. However, their expertly-engineered mechanism has to be commended, earning them their spot in the top three!

Second Place

Heritage 1 achieved second place with their box-shaped robot, which powered through the arena, accumulating supplies as the rounds went on. While they often collided with the trees and other tributes in the arena, they managed to secure enough supplies to earn them the second place spot in the competition!

First Place

Finally, the winner of RoboCon 2026, whose robot had a rough start at the beginning of the league rounds, but made an epic comeback by the time of the knockouts: Heritage 2! Their elegant-looking, laser-cut robot swept up supplies at incredible speeds, before the other tributes had even reached the neutral zone. It even featured a 3D-printed grabber mechanism of sorts, which didn’t see much use, but seemed to have been designed with stacking supplies in mind. Maybe next year they’ll attempt something like this again! Well done to them for their well-earned victory!

Final Words

We’d like to thank every team who came to the competition this year – you made for a really fun atmosphere and a great competition! For those of you who couldn’t quite make it – well done for trying, and thank you for taking part!

We’d also like to thank our sponsors: Darktrace, Frontier, and Redgate for providing us the funding and resources we need to run this competition. Without them, none of this would have been possible! The same goes for Hills Road and its wonderful staff who provided us with the space to run the competition.

Additionally, a huge thanks to all the Hills Road students who’ve worked hard since October to bring this competition into being. Not everything was smooth sailing – in fact most of it wasn’t, though well done to everyone who persevered! We also want to thank the Hills Road alumni who showed up at the kickoff and during the competition to help out – your experience running this was really insightful.

Finally, the utmost thanks to our mentors: Will Munns, Dave Massey, and Matthew Smalley for their incredible devotion to RoboCon and Hills Road’s robotics group. They work unbelievably hard on this time and time again, and without them pushing us, we would never get anything done.

Thank you all so much, and see you next year!