Trinity College (Connecticut) also has an annual firefighting robot contest (http://www.trincoll.edu/events/robot/) which is participated by high schools and colleges from around the world including from countries like Israel and China. This is the largest, public robotics competition held in the U.S. that is open to entrants of any age, ability or experience from anywhere in the world[.

The 14th Annual Trinity College Fire-Fighting Home Robot Contest was held on the Trinity campus in Hartford, Connecticut on April 14-15 in 007. One new event in the concept division was added to the 007 competition, which is the baby-finding contest. Participants will have to find both the flame and the simulated baby, extinguish the former and announce (or bring it to people’s attention somehow) when it finds the latter in the expert division. In the concept division, simply finding the baby and notifying the people is sufficient. Check the event website for contest details.

Hosted by Duke University, the Duke Annual Robo-Climb Competition (DARC) challenges students to create innovative wall-climbing robots that can ascend vertical surfaces. The competition, which will be held on Duke’s campus in Durham, North Carolina, will allow students to showcase their wall-climbing technology in an international forum and encourage students to network with industry leaders.

The FLL robots are entirely autonomous; the FVC competition involves separate autonomous and driver control matches; and the FRC competition involves an initial autonomous period (10 or 15 seconds) followed by tele-operated driver control.
RoboCup is a competitive organization dedicated to developing a team of fully autonomous humanoid robots that can win against the human world soccer champion team by the year 050. There are many different leagues ranging from computer simulation, to full-size humanoid robots.

Botball is a robotics competition for middle and high school students. Organized by the KISS Institute for Practical Robotics, Botball encourages participants to work constructively within their team building basic communication, problem solving, design, and programming skills. Each team builds one or more (up to four) robots that will autonomously move scoring objects into scoring positions.

The Mobile Autonomous Systems Laboratory is a university-level vision-based autonomous robotics competition. The competition is open to students of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and requires multithreaded applications of image processing, robotic movements, and target ball deposition. The robots are run with Debian Linux and run on an independent OrcBoard[5] platform that facilitates sensor-hardware additions and recognition.

Dean Kamen, Founder of FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology), created the world’s leading high school robotics competition in 199. FIRST provides a varsity-like competitive forum that inspires in young people, their schools and communities in an appreciation of science and technology.

Their robotics competition is a multinational competition that teams professionals and young people to solve an engineering design problem in an intense and competitive way. Their outreach includes the original FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) and the newer FIRST Vex Challenge (FVC or FTC) for ages 14-18, the FIRST Lego League (FLL) for ages 9-14, and Junior FIRST Lego League (JFLL) for ages 6-9. In 007, there were over 130,000 students and 37,000 adult mentors from around the world involved in at least one of FIRST’s competitions.

FIRST encourages teams to find adults from outside of the school environment who can pass on their knowledge as mentors. There are thousands of scholarships available to students who participate.

Another challenge teams involved in BEST face is limited materials – the primary construction materials used in BEST are simple and easily formed. These materials include PVC pipe, string, plywood, a limited quantity of sheet metal, and a bit of aluminum, as well as miscellaneous hardware,  large motors and  small motors, and the electronics necessary to run these motors and the 3 provided servos.

At the beginning of competition, the robot is checked over to make sure that no illegal parts are used. Originally, old printers were also part of the BEST kit and printer parts could be used on the machine. The limited materials make students think much more creatively with what they are given.

The International METU Robotics Days event is hosted annually by the Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Turkey. The Robotics Days include competitions as well as lectures and workshops designed to bring professionals, academics and amateurs together.[3]

In Micromouse competitions, small robots try to solve a maze in the fastest time. The current format involves the “mouse” finding its way to the centre of a 16×16 maze. The competitions have been held since 1979 and are conducted in countries around the world.

The DARPA Grand Challenge is a competition for driverless cars to traverse, in the shortest time possible, a path of pre-defined start and finish points. The unclaimed 004 prize for navigating through the Mojave Desert was $1,000,000. The farthest any participant got was only 7.4 miles. However, the 005 prize of $,000,000 was claimed by Stanford University. In this race, four vehicles successfully completed the race. This is a testament to how fast robotic vision and navigation are improving. The 007 competition pits the vehicles against a mock-urban course with live traffic obstacles.

The Intelligent Ground Vehicle Competition
The Intelligent Ground Vehicle Competition is a competition for autonomous ground vehicles that must traverse outdoor obstacle courses without any human interaction. This international competition sponsored by the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI), is a student design competition at the university level and has held annual competitions since 199.

The AUVSI and the U.S. Office of Naval Research have sponsored the International Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Competition  since 1997. This competition, as with the AUVSI Intelligent Ground Vehicle Competition is a spin-off of the AUVSI International Aerial Robotics Competition, and as such, carry through the theme of full autonomy of operation, albeit in a subsurface robotic vehicle. This too is a collegiate competition.

The BEST Robotics competition includes two elements: a robot competition, in which teams attempt to score as many points as possible in head-to-head competition, and the BEST award. The BEST award is more complex, encompassing such tasks as writing a high-quality technical notebook or engineering journal, designing a website, an interview, delivering an oral presentation to a panel of judges, and creating a table display booth. BEST is the second largest robotics competition in the U.S. with approximately 800 schools and over 10,000 students participating.

The UAE National Robotics Olympiad will showcase the best robot designers and challenge the mechanical engineering skills of students in the UAE. First-of-its-kind in the region for schools, this competition is reflective of our dedication to stimulate education in science, and promote students’ technical skills and increase competencies in a variety of disciplines. We invite all the schools in UAE to join in this spirit of competition and engineering excellence,’ added Karim.

H. E. Dr. Hanif Hassan Ali, UAE Minister of Education, while praising EDUTECH’s initiative in organizing this competition said, ‘Pedagogical approaches that enhance students’ active involvement in the learning of science and technology is the number one priority of all educational institutions in the UAE. EDUTECH’s initiative to organize this competition in the UAE will not only promote technology learning but also help develop crucial skills in students, such as independence, responsibility, critical reasoning, and social interaction. We appreciate EDUTECH’s initiative and urge all the schools in the country to join in this exciting event, which will help them enhance their competitiveness on a global level.’

WRO is aimed at young scientists from around the world to showcase their creative ability and engage in a friendly robot competition to develop their analytical skills. As the international robot festivity among youngsters, the first WRO was inaugurated in 2004 at Singapore and the second WRO was held in Bangkok, Thailand last year. So far, Australia, China, Denmark, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Iran, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Philippines, Russian Federation, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand and UAE have confirmed their participation in this year’s event.

The team’s robot, No. 1622, was one of the sleeker or more smooth-running ones in the competition and featured a long, retractable arm with two clawlike grasping mechanisms on its end. With 17-year-old Matt Howard at the controls, the robot managed to hang enough plastic tubes on the metal rack to earn a place in Saturday’s quarterfinal rounds.

Sun Valley Charter High’s cheerleading squad came out to cheer on the school’s Falcons robotics team at the event. Although the group’s Robot No. 2029 was eliminated from the competition and back in its shipping crate early on, the team stuck around to root for other competitors.

He and members of other robotics teams at the event said the program had taught them a wide range of valuable engineering, computer programming, marketing and other skills that will serve them well in the future. Addressing volunteers and mentors at a luncheon midway through Sunday’s finals, Abraxas High teacher Dave MacLeod said the program had opened new doors for his students, many of whom he described as struggling academically.

The initiative will provide a platform for students from schools in the UAE to test their creative ability, problem-solving skills and capabilities in robotic design, and will help in discovering the best robotics talent in the country.

Based on the contestants’ innovative, creative and technological ability, a panel of Judges will select the top UAE team, who will then be sent on an all-expenses-paid trip to China to compete for the international robotics championship at the ‘World Robot Olympiad’ (WRO), a world-wide robot-design competition to be held in the Chinese city of Nanning from November 16-18, 2006.

The UAE is the only country in the GCC that has been invited to participate in WRO, a testament to the country’s increasing recognition as a knowledge hub and technical expertise centre of excellence. The UAE team’s trip will be sponsored by EDUTECH along with LEGO Education, a leading manufacturer and supplier of robotic solutions.

ASF Karim, Managing Director of EDUTECH, said, ‘Science and technology are fundamental to the development of our knowledge-based society and our main aim through this competition is to develop our students’ interest and knowledge in robotics, and in turn contribute to every child’s overall mental and social development.

Controlled chaos reigned as that game played out over and over again during a regional robotics competition Saturday at the iPayOne Sports Arena. The inaugural one of its kind in San Diego, the event was sponsored by For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (or FIRST).

Founded in 1989 by Dean Kamon, inventor of the Segway Human Transporter, the nonprofit, New Hampshire-based program is designed to get students interested in math and science and encourage them to consider careers in engineering or technology.

The San Diego competition drew 46 robots created by high school students from around the country. Four North County schools Poway and Abraxas high schools, San Dieguito Academy high school in Encinitas, and Ramona’s Sun Valley Charter School were represented at the high-energy event. Winners will go on to a national one in Atlanta.

The competition actually kicked off in January, when 356 teams across the United States received $6,000 worth of standardized parts, including motors, sensors and control systems. Challenged to turn the pieces into remote-controlled robots capable of solving specific problems, the teams were given height and weight restrictions but no machine-building instructions.

The Intelligent Ground Vehicle Competition is a competition for autonomous ground vehicles that must traverse outdoor obstacle courses without any human interaction. This international competition sponsored by the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI), is a student design competition at the university level and has held annual competitions since 1992.

The AUVSI and the U.S. Office of Naval Research have sponsored the International Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Competition  since 1997