Combat robotics

Middle school: build your own

Middle school combat runs through the Impact Robotics League. Students build one-pound plastic ant robots from 3D-printed parts, electronics, and one-pound-class components — and every student designs and builds an individual robot. Nobody gets carried; nobody gets sidelined.

• Design: CAD every part before it exists, in Onshape or Fusion 360
• Print: 3D print it, and learn which materials and tolerances survive an impact
• Wire: Speed controllers, receivers, soldering, and battery management
• Fight: The arena is the exam — then diagnose what broke, redesign it, and reprint

How a build group works

Students build in build groups — small groups that share a weekly lab night, so students learn from each other and build alongside friends doing the same thing. Teams continue design work between meetings; lab nights go to building, testing and troubleshooting. Every build group has a student mentor, usually a builder who finished their own machine the season before — the fastest way to learn combat robotics is from someone who just did it.

• CAD comes first: Students demonstrate CAD capability to join. A class is one path, self-taught is another — this is a competition team, not a class
• Students own the design: Strategy, robot concept and all of the CAD are the student's work. Mentors and parents guide; they don't take the mouse
• Wrecks are the curriculum: A destroyed robot is a diagnosis and a reprint, not a lost season

High school combat

High school students build across the full weight classes — one pound, three pound, and fifteen pound — competing at Sacramento Bot Battles and on the national stage. The fifteen-pound record below is the high school program's.