New Combat Robotics Club Goes Head-to-Head in First Competition, Invites Students to Join the Fun

They might be tiny "antweight bots," but they are amped up and out to destroy their competitors. They are under-1-pound, 3D-printed, and remotely controlled robots designed and created by the newly formed Caltech Combat Robotics club, and they have started taking on challengers in local competitions. The simple goal of each face-off? Knockout opponent bots. If you have ever seen the show BattleBots, you know the kind of gear-grinding, metal-scraping, even fire-spraying chaos that can ensue in combat robotics tournaments with larger robots.

The Caltech Combat Robotics club is a branch of the revived Caltech Robotics Team (CRT), which originally formed in 2011. That team competed in NASA's Rover Exploration Challenge and even won the International RoboSub Challenge in 2016, but it petered out during the pandemic. Last academic year, current second-year Tatyana McVay and senior Donny Lu, worked hard to bring the CRT back to life. Then, over the summer, they decided it was time to launch the new combat robotics branch. The CRT now boasts about 20 members who meet twice a week, currently in the basement of the Firestone Flight Sciences Laboratory. The team is actively recruiting additional Caltech students to join both the CRT and the Combat Robotics club (no robotics experience is necessary to join).

The Caltech team participated in its first competition at the end of last month at USC, throwing two of its 3D-printed antweight bots into the arena for tournament-style double-elimination battles. "Overall, it was super fun, and we learned a lot!" says McVay. The club is now working on new bots—not only in the antweight classification but also in heavier weight classes—and strategizing about competition tactics.

McVay first became interested in robotics as a freshman in high school in Peachtree Corners, Georgia, when a physics teacher encouraged her to check out the tangle of components in the school's robotics room. She started working with VEX robotics before eventually transitioning to combat robotics. She enjoyed watching "bot reveal" videos, where builders show off some (but not all) aspects of their robots before competitions and world championship matches on YouTube.

"Combat robotics is just really cool. You have bots. They fight each other. I mean, who doesn't love that?" says McVay. "But," she adds, "I think it's also a really good way to get exposure to robotics early on."

The destructive nature of the activity combined with the featherweight of the robots means that essentially every time a competitor sends a robot into the arena, they end up needing to remake their bot. That means builders quickly go through many iterations. "In the process, you learn a lot of mechanics. You learn how to design the electrical systems, how to solder, how to put the pieces together," says McVay, a physics major. "I think it's important for people in physics to sometimes go out and build things and not just focus on the theory of what they're learning," she says.

McVay also loves the teamwork aspect of combat robotics. Several people with different skill sets and interests can work on a single robot, seeing it through many versions. "And once you actually go to a competition, everybody's really hyped up and rooting for the team. It's great for bonding and also for getting experience," she says.

During the summer, McVay approached Trent Wilson, the lab machining assistant in the machine shop in Spalding to ask about the possibility of a combat robotics club. She had found the right guy. Wilson has been involved in the combat robotics community for more than 10 years and volunteers to help organize and run local combat robotics events in the Southern California region. Together, they constructed a new custom arena for the club's robotic showdowns using aluminum extrusions, polycarbonate sheets, and custom-machined brackets. And then team members started building antweight bots.

"I'm elated to see combat robotics on campus as I see it as very effective, hands-on, and exciting way to get folks interested and involved in mechanical engineering and design," says Wilson. "Combat robotics is a great way to develop interests and skills around mechanical design and engineering for extreme environments and forces competitors to constantly test and iterate new designs and ideas to stay competitive."

The team is branching out into build heavier, more involved robots, called beetleweight bots. These require more machining and involve more complex materials rather than the typical 3D-printed PLA (polylactic acid) parts found in plastic antweights. Beyond that, they hope to eventually start building 12-pound hobbyweight bots and seeing how their bots perform in competitions throughout Southern California, including two scheduled for February.

Information about how to join the CRT or the Combat Robotics club can be found on the CRT's website.