The competition
Be an active part of the AI.Industrial.Revolution with our international competition in robot manipulation
What is Robothon®?
Robothon® is an international competition and benchmarking event for measuring state-of-the-art performance in robot manipulation.
Teams compete using a robot platform to autonomously execute a series of hand-picked manual tasks inspired by real world industry challenges across multiple sites.
The Robothon® is a network for professional experts and academic researchers to collaborate together on pressing economic challenges.
Grand Challenge Tasks 2025
Showcase your robot`s accuracy and reflexes in the robot arcade!
TASK 1
FIND THE BOARD
Find the task board randomly placed on table by pressing a button
TASK 2
SPEED CHECK
Move as fast as possible to press the top speed button
TASK 3
CATCH THE TOOL
A manipulation tool will be dropped based on a randomized timer and your robot needs to catch if before it hits the ground. The distance if falls before the tool is caught is considered your robot`s reaction time
TASK 4
TRACE THE SHAPE
Use the stylus on the manipulation tool to trave the generated shape on the tast board touchscreen
TASK 5
MARBLE MAZE
Use the magnet on the manipulation tool to pick and drag the marbles in the labyrinth to the illuminated goals
Bring-your-own-device (BYOD) Challenge:
Using the same software stack from the challenge task board, demonstrate your robot platform performing a task that best highlights your robot platform`s abilities
The task board consists of 5 task objects found in an industrial plant representing skills a robot platform may need an e-waste material handling plant
© Peter SoTeam’s must provide details about their intended robot platform in their team application. Our goal is to provide the lowest barrier to entry for teams to participate in cutting edge robotics research and welcome all teams, from universities and companies, to apply. The competition seeks to find the best automated solution for the challenge tasks. Human performance is established as a baseline measurement for all solutions and, therefore, bimanual systems are encouraged but not required. All the challenge tasks have been designed to be completed with a single arm manipulator and pinch gripper. The organizers will review each team’s robotic platform in their application and will create performance categories for teams with significantly different hardware as deemed necessary by the Grand Jury.
Safety: All participating teams are responsible for their own safety when operating equipment in connection with the competition. As such, the organizers do not take responsibility for damages that may occur.
- RECORDED VIDEO - TEAM PRESENTATION
This video gives the team the opportunity to describe their solution to the Grand Jury. It is recommended to introduce the robotic hardware used in the solution and discuss the algorithms used in solving the challenge. Also in this video, teams should highlight the transferability of their solution with the Bring-Your-Own-Device challenge. Teams can also highlight their learning journey and lessons learned through participating in the competition. This video is limited to 5-minutes in length
- RECORDED VIDEO - UNCUT OF BACK-TO-BACK Robot Trials:
This video captures the robustness of your solution in an uncut video of five subsequent trial attempts with your robot platform on the competition task board. This video is limited to 10-minutes in length. You may speed up the video between active trials as necessary.
- CODE REPOSITORY / PROJECT DOCUMENTATION - Part I
This repository should contain a ReadMe file with a brief description of the robotic platform used in the competition. It should also include a list of hardware components used in the robot platform as a table and a list of software dependencies to frameworks and libraries used. Finally, it shall include a Quick Start Section that describes how to operate the robot platform as shown in the final demonstrations. Please add a .zip folder of your repository with a readme from Github.
- CODE REPOSITORY / PROJECT DOCUMENTATION - Part II
Please add a web link to your Github repository.
- Task board and trial scorecards will be sent to teams at the start of Robothon® prior to the start of the competition and digital kick off meeting
- During the 30-day development period, teams shall develop their robot platform to complete trials where it moves the task board from its starting state to the goal state without any human intervention.
- Teams will be graded using an uncut video of their robot performing their solution on their task board AND with a Live Presentation with the Grand Challenge Jury to be scheduled over a video call
- Prior to starting a trial, teams must move the task board to a random location on Velcro strips on a table in front of the robot to prevent pre-programming fixed motion paths
- Once a trial has started, each team’s robot is expected to complete the entire set of tasks autonomously. Each human intervention will incur negative points for the team’s final trial score
- Trial runs will have a maximum run time of 10 minutes
- No more than 2 trial attempts will be permitted during the Live Presentation with the Grand Challenge Jury
- Teams who earn equal numbers of points will be distinguished by the fastest total trail completion time
Web Dashboard: Be connected to the world!
Follow Along the Journey – See individual team performance trials with the Competition IoT Task Board with our Web Dashboard.
Competition Timeline
- Gather a team of two to four people
- Prepare a 2-page motivation letter explaining your team’s qualifications, team formation, and research areas of interest and expertise
- Add a short video (2 Min. max) about your previous work
- Fill in your team application on this Call for Teams form
- Selected teams will be notified and will receive their competition task board by mail
01:00 - 02:00 p.m. CET
- Meet the competition organizers, sponsors, jury, and other competing teams
- Review the competition outline and receive the official competition scorecard
- Ask questions and get answers related to the event prior to the start of the development period
- You have four weeks of development time
- Create a fully autonomous solution with your robot platform
- Log as many trial attempts as possible with the task board
- Follow the scorecard to earn the most points
23:59 CET
- Create and submit an uncut video of your solution (10 Min. max)
- Submit a presentation video (5 Min. max) describing your approach, algorithms is used in your solution and your local e-waste assignment
- Include a Github project link documenting your robot platform with a quick start to run your solution
- Will be conducted over video conference with one or more jury members to be scheduled upon submission of a valid solution
- Teams must provide two video streams: (1) fixed with a view of their robot and task board, (2) portable to “walk” the jury around the room
- 20 Min. Zoom call with the jury
- 10 Min. to demonstrate your solution; you have 2 attempts
- Teams will have 2 attempts to present their solution, the best score will be counted
- The Grand Challenge Jury will determine the winners of the competition. The finalists will be informed afterwards.
- Team scorecards, live jury presentation video, and task board measurements will be considered
- Finalists will be recognized and awarded on the munich_i platform at the automatica trade fair from June 24-27, 2025