Robothon® FAQ

The competition will start on March 29, 2023. All teams will be given one month to work on the tasks. The live presentation with the Grand Challenge Jury will take place on May 8-11, 2023. The winning teams will be informed after May 12, and will be awarded on-site during automatica trade fair on June 29, 2023 in Munich

The Robothon® takes place 100 % digitally as a part of munich_i and will be integrated in the automatica exhibition in Munich. Selected teams will receive a competition task board by mail to participate remotely from their own robot lab. In doing so, we aim to make the Robothon® the lowest barrier-to-entry, real-world manipulation competition for roboticists from all parts of the world to participate in cutting edge robotics.

This year’s Robothon® Grand Challenge aims to develop reusable robotic manipulation skills for operating a multimeter. Checking the working condition of used equipment is an important step in determining if components can be refurbished. Sorting waste streams is vital to promoting a circular economy. This event specifically looks at how robots can inspect electronic components with five different manipulation tasks using our competition task board. Teams develop an autonomous solution to the task board with their robot platform and then are challenged to check the function of an e-waste device of their own in the Bring-Your-Own-Device (BYOD) Challenge.

All teams are kindly asked to use their own development computer, robot and tools. Each team will receive a competition task board via mail to participate in the competition. A trial protocol and competition scorecard will be shared with the teams at the kickoff event. Find more information here about our recommendation for minimum platform requirements. For further questions, please send an email to robothon@munich-i.com .

The Challenge starts on March 28, 2023, 01:00 - 02:00 p.m. CET !

• For this purpose, a digital appointment will be arranged in advance
• All teams will receive the competition task board in advance by mail
• The scorecard, rules, and guidelines will be sent to all teams after the digital kickoff meeting

• You and your team work will have one month to develop an autonomous solution to the tasks on the competition task board with your robot platform
• Deliverables due on April 30, 11:59 p.m., CET sent via this Form
  • 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: 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.

• Team scorecards, live jury presentation video, and task board measurements will be considered in the Grand Jury´s evaluation.
• Changes to your team or robot platform during the development period must be reported early in writing to robothon@munich_i.com

A detailed event schedule will follow once your participation has been confirmed. Selected teams will be invited to our community Slack workspace for communication throughout the competition. Please feel free to contact the organizers at any time via email robothon@munich-i.com .
We ask you to include your team name in emails to the organizers with the following subject title “[TEAM NAME] <Your Subject>”.

munich_i is a joint project of automatica and the Munich Insitute of Robotics and Machine Intelligence (MIRMI) to bring together science, business, politics and start-ups to shape the future progress in AI and robotics. The three parts of the project are: the Hightech Summit, the AI.Society as well as Robothon®. automatica sprint and munich_i successfully premiered together from June 22 to 24, 2021: There was consistently positive and sometimes enthusiastic participant feedback on the new digital format in the automatica portfolio and the globally unique munich_i Hightech Summit on robotics and artificial intelligence (AI). Over 3,500 participants from the robotics and automation industry took the opportunity to exchange ideas and network online at automatica sprint – and to digitally immerse themselves in the world of AI and robotics at munich_i.

The Munich Institute of Robotics and Machine Intelligence (MIRMI), founded by The Technical University of Munich (TUM) as an Integrative Research Center in the ield of robotics and machine intelligence, to develop innovative and sustainable technologies and solutions for central challenges of our time.