Robotics Competition

The objective of 2025 student robotics competition is to demonstrate the use of an autonomous ground robotic system within in the game field grid to perform tasks such as, spotting the location of fire, aiding fire fighting by carrying firehose spool and laying the hose to the location of fire. The robot will be tested by having a challenging terrain with obstacles to avoid along its way to locating fire and firehose laying. This year’s competition is sponsored by IEEE Region 5.

Eligibility

The competition is open to teams of no more than 5 and no less than 2 undergraduate students who are enrolled in a college or University within the IEEE Region 5 boundaries. The competition encourages a multidisciplinary approach to robot development and recognizes the participation of students who may already be members of SAE, ASME, EEGS, etc. Teams should not include any non-undergraduate students. The teams should submit their intent to compete form. Teams are selected from the submitted pool on a first come first served basis. Selected teams will be invited to register for the R5 conference and participate in the competition. Team substitutions are at the discretion of the competition chair. 

Only one team is allowed from each IEEE Student Branch or IEEE-HKN Chapter due to space limitations.

Rules and Guidelines

The Student robotics Competition will be conducted and judged according to the rules document posted in the 2025 IEEE R5 student robotics competition website (see registration link below). The teams interested in contesting are encouraged to have a look at this document at the earliest. As with the previous years the robotics competition rules are subject to modification under required circumstances. To keep up-to-date with any such changes please fill out the intent to compete to receive email updates or join the IEEE R5 discord group. The schedule will be as follows:

  • Check–in: from 8:00 am – 8:45 am
  • Round 1: Game field survey and spotting the location of fire – 9:00 to 11:00 am
  • Lunch: from 11:30 am to 12:15 pm
  • Round 2: Navigating to the location of fire with challenging terrain – 12:30 pm to 2:00 pm
  • Round 3: Laying the firehose from designated location to location of fire – 3:00 pm to 4:00 pm

The robotics competition is open to all attendees. However, the attendees and the student participants should not intervene with the robot, field judge or the contesting team in any form, that includes photography, video recording etc., The field judge has the right to ban any activity that is deemed interfering with the competition process.

Click here to view the complete rules of the 2025 robotics competition (updated Jan 21, 2025).

Click here to view the additional information regarding heat gun mount and hose latch (Also available in Google Drive).

Team and Student Registration

Each team MUST complete the online Intent to Compete form to declare their intention to participate. This is NOT the same as registering for the IEEE Region 5 conference. In addition to this each team must also register for the conference by February 14, 2025 to ensure their place to compete. The fee for registration is $150 for IEEE members and $250 otherwise.

Awards

Winning teams will be awarded the following prize money

  • 1st Place – $1200
  • 2nd Place – $600
  • 3rd Place – $300

Awards will be disbursed to the teams’ IEEE student branches or IEEE-HKN chapters.

Contact

We use Discord as our primary means of communicating updates about individual competitions. Click on the button below to join the R5 Discord Server. Inside the server you can find channels for all the competitions, including the Robotics competition (#robotics-general). The competition chairs and volunteers are members of the channel, and will respond to any questions you might have.

We strongly recommend the participants to be part of the Discord server, as all the updates regarding individual competitions will be communicated via their corresponding channels (including during the day of the event).