UCL Robotics & AI Showdown sparks innovation among first-year engineers

Creativity, engineering, innovation and teamwork were on full display at the UCL Robotics & AI Showdown 2025 on 5 June, as the annual extravaganza saw Year 1 MEng Robotics and Artificial Intelligence students design and race their robots over a course created by staff to challenge them, in an event called Robot Escape(ades). 

Held at the UCL Innovation Lab in our Marshgate building, the all-day event featured an energetic line-up of students, working to showcase their end-of-term projects, cheered on by spectators. These budding teams of roboticists and AI developers went head-to-head in a friendly yet fiercely competitive event, to see whose robot could overcome the most formidable obstacles.

Team prizes were awarded in a range of categories: 

• Most Creative: Krabby Patty
• Overall Points: Transformers
• Overall People's Choice (by secret ballot): Transformers
• Fastest Robot: EzDubZ

Crowd favourite obstacles included the Dragon Lava Pit, the Tunnel of Worry, and the Giant’s Causeway, as the student-built robots navigated treacherous terrains, steep inclines and even a zipwire! Despite the robots' impressive navigation of many complex obstacles, more than one found its greatest challenge lay in turning the tight corners of the course.

Students on the 4-year undergraduate MEng programme had just six weeks to prepare their robots to navigate the obstacles, with the final course design kept under wraps until the first test runs. Once the Showdown went live, it was open for all to enjoy via a broadcast on the live-streaming and social media platform, Twitch. Enjoy a sneak peak behind the scenes captured for Instagram by one of the students taking the challenge.

Oliver Collier, UCL Innovation Lab Manager and Robotics Challenge co-creator, said: 

This highly educational and fun project showcases iterative design and rapid prototyping of complex systems, in a problem-based learning (PBL) context, employing applied design-engineering processes, critical thinking and teamwork. And the UCL Innovation Lab is the perfect setting. The project was conceived and designed here, with taught modules put in place to provide the foundations for the project.

The Robotics & AI Showdown wasn't just a competition - it was a celebration of first-year talent and teamwork, blending foundational engineering principles with an opportunity for ambition and creativity. Spectators witnessed not only technical prowess but also the playful spirit of discovery that defines the UCL Innovation Lab’s approach to hands-on learning.

A huge congratulations to all who supported and participated!

Study for an MEng in Robotics and AI at UCL