Expert Overview

The National Robotics Challenge is a hands-on robotics competition for students from sixth grade through graduate school, held annually in Marion, Ohio, with about a dozen contests including combat robots, Micromouse, autonomous vehicles, and additive manufacturing. Founded in 1986 as a Society of Manufacturing Engineers contest, it awards gold, silver, and bronze medals in each contest by school level.

Format

Team

Judging Format

Scoring based

Recognition

Grade Eligibility

Rising Freshmen, Sophomores, Juniors, Seniors

Geographic Eligibility

Discipline

RoboticsEngineering

Entries

1,200-1,500

Percent Awarded

Not published

Important Dates

Registration Opens

Mid-January 2027

Regisrtation Deadline

Mid-February 2027

Championship

April 15-17, 2027

Passed

Open

Approaching: < 1 mo.

Priority: < 2 weeks

Urgent: < 1 week

Registration Cost

$85 per team/school + $20 per robot entered

About

Teams register online and compete at the championship in contests from combat robots and Micromouse to Sumo, Robot Maze, autonomous vehicles, and additive manufacturing. Fully assembled purchased robots are barred in some contests, such as Micromouse.

The credential is specific rather than selective. Registration runs on a deadline and a form, the organizer publishes no entry counts, and each contest awards only gold, silver, and bronze, so a medal documents a robot that beat its field, not a national selection rate. The value is the build: a robot the student designed and can describe in detail is concrete engineering evidence that the medal corroborates.

The National Robotics Challenge is the right competition for a student who wants to build a robot against a defined task — a maze, a sumo ring, a combat arena — and test it against other builders at a single championship.