Growth of Robot Combat
Robot combat in North America has grown quickly since the pandemic. This page collects season-by-season numbers for ranked events, robots and teams, from the Robot Combat League 2022 season onward, with a breakdown by weight class. See also Events to find an event near you, and Running an Event if you'd like to add one.
About the data
The numbers come from a spreadsheet compiled from results on RobotCombatEvents.com (RCE), including many events that took registrations elsewhere. Things to keep in mind:
- Seasons, not calendar years. Each row is a League season, which runs from March 1 to the last day of February the following year.
- Ranked North American events only. The counts include events whose results count toward the League rankings. Events elsewhere in the world, and informal events with no recorded brackets or results, aren't included.
- From 2022 on. Earlier seasons are left out, because the data is less complete and events were still recovering from the pandemic.
- Close, not exact. A few events may have been missed, but there's no reason to think accuracy differs from year to year, so the trends should be reliable. The team counts are the least accurate figures.
Overall growth
| League season | Events | Change | Unique robots | Change | Teams | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 (Mar 2022 – Feb 2023) | 98 | – | 2,068 | – | 793 | – |
| 2023 (Mar 2023 – Feb 2024) | 125 | +28% | 2,606 | +26% | 886 | +12% |
| 2024 (Mar 2024 – Feb 2025) | 166 | +33% | 3,371 | +29% | 1,089 | +23% |
| 2025 (Mar 2025 – Feb 2026) | 214 | +29% | 3,906 | +16% | 1,173 | +8% |
From the 2022 season to the 2025 season, the number of ranked events more than doubled (98 to 214, +118%), the number of different robots competing rose by 89%, and the number of teams rose by 48%.[1]
| Season | Ranked events | Unique robots | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 98 | 2,068 | ||
| 2023 | 125 | 2,606 | ||
| 2024 | 166 | 3,371 | ||
| 2025 | 214 | 3,906 | ||
By weight class
Events per class
The number of events that ran each class. Most events run several classes, so these add up to more than the total number of events. In the last column, each class has two bars, the grey 2022 bar above the blue 2025 bar, so you can see how much the class grew.
Key: 2022 season 2025 season
| Class | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | Change 2022→2025 | 2022 vs 2025 season |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fairyweight (150 g) | 56 | 60 | 61 | 102 | +82% | |
| Plastic Antweight (1 lb) | 42 | 63 | 102 | 172 | +310% | |
| Antweight (1 lb) | 87 | 106 | 133 | 179 | +106% | |
| Beetleweight (3 lb) | 74 | 90 | 124 | 144 | +95% | |
| Hobbyweight (12 lb) | 18 | 14 | 13 | 15 | -17% | |
| Sportsman (30 lb) | 5 | 6 | 6 | 8 | +60% | |
| Featherweight (30 lb) | 11 | 11 | 12 | 11 | +0% |
Unique robots per class
The number of different robots that competed in each class during the season. The bars compare the 2022 and 2025 seasons, as above.
Key: 2022 season 2025 season
| Class | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | Change 2022→2025 | 2022 vs 2025 season |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fairyweight (150 g) | 238 | 251 | 327 | 354 | +49% | |
| Plastic Antweight (1 lb) | 250 | 455 | 772 | 1,105 | +342% | |
| Antweight (1 lb) | 664 | 938 | 1,106 | 1,053 | +59% | |
| Beetleweight (3 lb) | 708 | 733 | 955 | 1,173 | +66% | |
| Hobbyweight (12 lb) | 100 | 124 | 96 | 121 | +21% | |
| Sportsman (30 lb) | 27 | 25 | 27 | 32 | +19% | |
| Featherweight (30 lb) | 81 | 80 | 88 | 68 | -16% |
Trends
- Plastic Antweights grew fastest. Events running the class went from 42 to 172 (about four times as many), and robots from 250 to 1,105. In the 2025 season, more Plastic Antweights competed than metal Antweights. The class is cheap to build and popular with beginners and schools (see Plastic Antweights and Combat Robotics in Schools and Universities).
- Fairyweights jumped in 2025. Fairyweight events were steady at about 60 a season, then rose to 102 in the 2025 season.
- Beetleweights grew every season and had the most robots of any class in the 2025 season (1,173). Antweight robots peaked in the 2024 season (1,106) and dipped slightly in 2025, even though the number of Antweight events kept rising.
- The 12 lb and 30 lb classes stayed small. Hobbyweight, Sportsman and Featherweight numbers changed by only a few events and a few dozen robots between 2022 and 2025, so nearly all of the growth has been in the insect classes (3 lb and under).[2]
Events by month
The spreadsheet also has full event lists for the 2024 and 2025 seasons. These lists include every event found, including events outside North America and events that weren't counted in the League totals above, so the totals here are higher.
| Season | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Jan | Feb | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | 22 | 21 | 15 | 19 | 12 | 19 | 20 | 16 | 24 | 9 | 15 | 14 | 206 |
| 2025 | 28 | 28 | 29 | 19 | 18 | 23 | 24 | 23 | 32 | 12 | 18 | 22 | 276 |
In both seasons, November was the busiest month and December the quietest.[3]