Contests

Here you will find ideas for holding your own robotics competitions, and also information about current and completed Parallax contests and design challenges.

Box Maze

See which robot can locate the opening in a Box Maze and escape in the shortest time — a Robot Competition Idea for the Boe-Bot, Shield-Bot, or ActivityBot robot.

Three Wall Race

Devise a strategy to touch the walls at as many high-scoring spots as possible in 60 seconds. The catch? Students don't know the numbering until 30 minutes before the contest! A great idea by Gary Reynolds, Physics Instructor at Santa Ana High School.

Wall-to-Wall

Touch sensors and accurate turning are the skills being tested as a robot drives from wall to wall, aiming to touch the high-scoring spots as many times as possible in 60 seconds.

Maze Run

Can your student's robots run through the maze without touching the masking tape, yet stop right on the target?

Running Straight

A test of skill in tuning robots to drive straight, without the use of encoders, plus the ability to sense and stop at a wall.

2D-3D Maze Competition

Challenge your competitors to run a 3-dimensional maze in this Robot Competition Idea provided by the Zillah Robot Challenge.

Individual Pursuit Race

Robot Competition Idea - Like two cyclists in a velodrome, two robots start simultaneously at opposite sides of an oval wall and see which robot can catch up with the other first. PING))) Ultrasonic Distance Sensors are used to detect the wall — but touch it, and you're out!

Scribbler Kicker Flags

The objective of this game is for the S2 robot to activate 10 flags located in the competition field. When the S2 robot bumps the front of the Kicker, a Flag goes up. The S2 robot that raises the most flags wins.

Clear the Table

Sized for classrooms, this Robot Competition Idea is designed for Parallax ActivityBot, Boe-Bot, Shield-Bot or SumoBot chassis-based robots. The objective is to find and push the most objects off of a low platform in the least amount of time. Creative use of sensors and custom-built plows encouraged!

SumoBot Wrestling

This challenge consists of each SumoBot robot seeking out the opponent robot and pushing it out of the Sumo Ring (thereby earning a Yuko point), and to avoid being pushed out of the Sumo Ring itself. A game for the SumoBot Competition Kit and Applied Robotics with the SumoBot.

Race of Scribblers

This challenge consists of a race between two S2 (Scribbler) robots, each in their own track separated by a wall, with a cross-over point. The S2 robots can navigate by detecting the walls or following a black line on the tracks.

ELEV-8 Air Race

This competition is a timed aerial race where the racing track is set up in 3 dimensions. It is open to any fixed multi-rotor aircraft, including the ELEV-8 Quadcopter.

Boe-Logistics

This Boe-Bot style robot challenge consists of distributing the colored balls into the different scoring zones of the field. Each ball must be taken into a matching color zone.