The RoboCon 2025 competition was held at Hills Road Sixth Form College on the 9th and 10th April 2025, after launching on the 2nd November 2024. Read about the kickoff event here.

This year’s competition consisted of 12 teams of students from the Cambridge area, who have worked hard over the past 6 months to build their own robot to compete in our competition, using the kit we provided them. This kit consisted of everything they needed to get started (including a brain similar to a Raspberry Pi, a laptop, and some assorted electronics - more about what we provide can be found here). Well done to all the teams who were involved (including the teams that didn’t quite make it to the competition), it’s a great achievement to have built your own robot from scratch, we hope you had gained lots of skills in the process, had fun, and we hope to see you all next year!

Game Overview

This year the theme was “Dragon’s Lair”. Robots (referred to as dragons in this year’s game) collected their own cube-shaped sheep into their zone to score themselves points. However, to score even more points, they could travel far into another team’s zone to collect their unique coloured gem! Each dragon’s zone also consisted of a raised platform (lair). Here, dragons could place their most precious items, including their gem. Placing their gem onto their lair scored them a whopping 12 points.

To find out more about this year’s game, take a look at the rulebook.

Highlights from the competition

Before we dive into the results of this year’s competition, I’d love to say a big well done to all the teams that competed this year. It was great to see such a wide range of designs from all the robots, by the end of the competition we saw all the teams moving around, and saw some rather fiery strategies! There were also a few collisions throughout the competition… in the below photo, two teams collided with each other causing the loss of a wheel, this wheel was then run over by another robot!

After this collision, you’ll be pleased to know all robots survived to continue competing in further rounds (few)! Some robots did encounter a few issues throughout the competition, but one of my favourite moments was when a robot was doing pirouettes right in the middle of the arena. In the below image, the robot was spinning while holding a cube above its’ head! Also, loved the black dragon design seen on the left of the below…

Finally, I enjoyed watching the hydraulic system seen on the robot below. It’s network of copper pipes allowed it to efficiently lift cubes, and deposit them succesfully into their lair, scoring them lots of points!

There were of course many other fantastic moments throughout the competition, but I couldn’t fit them all into one news post!

Awards

Now, the bit you’ve all been waiting for - who won? Below are the awards given by our generous sponsors to robots that caught their eye in our other award categories, followed by RoboCon 2025’s final podium line up.

The Redgate Perseverance Award - The Heritage School (Team 1)

This award, also known as the “Fire-born Resolve” award: given to the team who demonstrate the most perseverance in the face of adversity. This team experienced many issues with their robot’s arms to guide cubes in. Initially, they used wooden arms that kept falling off, changed to metal ones which failed to deploy, then changed to a mix of both! They also solved a variety of difficult programming bugs. Well done Heritage 1!

The Darktrace Theme Award – Swavesey Village College

The “Dragon’s Eye for Detail” award was given to Swavesey Village College, as they showed the most robot and team flair. Their robot featured an eye-catching design, and embodied this year’s theme of dragon’s lair with their fearsome black dragon design. Great work!

The Frontier Innovation Award – King’s Ely Team 1

The “Gem-cutting Precision” award was given to King’s Ely Team 1. They impressed the judges through their ingenious technical and logical advancements. Their robot used strings to pull the crane mechanism. Brilliant stuff!

4th Place - Trumpington Village College Team 3

Scoring 4 points in the final round, Trumpington successfully hearded sheep into their zone, getting them 4th place in our fearsome competition. Well done!

3rd Place – The Little Devils

Their quacking robot, covered in little yellow rubber ducks, employed a successful strategy throughout the competition scoring them 15 points in the final round. Their large arm, with a suction motor to pick up cubes, successfully worked as a crane to move cubes around the arena. They ended up being only 1 point away from 2nd place. Well done team!

2nd Place – Terry’s Trainers

Terry’s Trainers wrecked havoc across the arena. Their speed allowed them to zoom around, strategically collecting all the gems (including other teams’) in the arena and placing them safely home in their lair. They finished the final with 16 points, making them our 2025 runners up, congratulations!

1st Place – King’s Ely Team 2

This year, the crown went to King’s Ely for the 2nd year in a row! They scored a whopping 26 points in the final, with their robot herding as many sheep as possible into their zone. They also used fast motors, allowing them to fly around the arena at speed! A big congratulations to all the team!

Final Words

Thank you to all teams who competed in RoboCon 2025 for a fantastic competition, and the teachers and mentors who put in the time to support them. It was a pleasure to have you all this year, and you should all be very proud of your creations!

RoboCon is funded in its entirety by the generous support from a myriad of businesses, so we would like to thank our sponsors this year: Darktrace, Frontier Developments, Redgate and Microsoft. Without you, RoboCon would be impossible. If you are interested in sponsoring RoboCon, please get in touch!

RoboCon is run and developed by the volunteering students (a.k.a. red shirts) and alumni of Hills Road Sixth Form College, we are led by our amazing mentors and teachers who give up their time to allow us both compete at Student Robotics and run this competition. Thank you Matthew Smalley, Will Munns, David Massey, Skyler Grey and all the alumni who continue to provide support throughout the year!

Keep an eye on this page for information about RoboCon 2026 in the coming months, we hope to see you all again next year, why not sign up here! And remember…

Don’t Walk, do the robot!

Oliver Corrigan - HRSFC Robotics Leader 2025