Robot Combat League
Note: This article is not about the 2013 TV show of the same name.
The Robot Combat League is a non-profit whose mission is to promote STEM and design and fabrication skills through the exciting sport of Robot Combat.
How RCL works
Robot Combat League is a national robot competition federation, not an official organizing body for Robot Combat. Launched in March 2022, it draws competitors from local events in the USA to participate at a national level. Although most local events in the League use the SPARC rule set or some variant, every event participating in the league is independent and can run their event as they see fit, so long as they fit into a very broad set of guidelines and agree to use the League event results tracking system that will help determine which bots are the top competitors in the USA. Highly ranked bots are invited to the annual National Championship. The Robot Combat League dwarfs similar leagues, with more than 200 qualifying events in the 2025 season.
Qualifying weight classes
As of 2026, ranks are calculated for the most popular weight classes: 150g, 1lb, 1lb Plastic, 3lb, 12lb, 30lb, and 30lb Sportsman robots.[1] If more weight classes become popular and events want to include them in the League, the ranked classes may be expanded.
League season
The season starts the first day of March and ends on the last day of February. Competitions in this time period are qualifiers for the National Championship held later that year (for example, the 2025 season, March 2025 to February 2026, qualified robots for the June 2026 championship). The first season was 2022. Event data prior to March 2022 isn't complete, so take historical rankings with a grain of salt.
Determining points and rankings
Robots earn points by how highly they place at events they participate in. A robot's season total is taken from their top 3 - highest point events, provided there are at least 5 competitors in the same weight class competing, and rankings are determined from this season score.
Points are determined by how well a robot places in a competition, and is weighted by the number of robots competing. The exact calculations to determine a robots score can be viewed on this calculator.
The Robot Combat League bot ranking page is updated periodically and can be filtered by year. There is also a separate university ranking.
National Championship
Each year, the top-ranked robots from the season are invited to the Robot Combat League National Championship, which crowns a national champion in every ranked class. That page has the full history and the top three robots in each class for every year.
| Year | Location | Qualifying season |
|---|---|---|
| 2023 | Seattle, Washington | 2022 (98 events) |
| 2024 | San Jose, California | 2023 (126 events) |
| 2025 | Santa Ana, California | 2024 |
| 2026 | Salt Lake City, Utah | 2025 (200+ events) |
Why the Robot Combat League doesn't use the SPARC Botrank system
Although the old Botrank system made an attempt at tracking how well robots performed, their system had several shortcomings.
- Botrank scores were greatly influenced by the number of events a bot has competed in; bots that competed a lot were favored over those that placed highly in events. This led to situations where a bot that competed and performed 'OK' in a half dozen events would be ranked higher than a robot that competed in and won two events.
- Forfeits in events were found to be inconsistently reported, leading to errors in ranking.
- Botrank rankings were adjusted based on an 18-month rolling time period. While this captures recent performance well, having a moving period where rankings would be set made calculations of seasonal rank difficult to evaluate.
- Botrank didn't have a way to disambiguate robots with the same name. Common robot names like 'Hazard' made the results unreliable.
See also
- Robot Combat League National Championship – past champions and results
- Growth of Robot Combat – League events, robots and teams by season
- Major Competitions
- Events – find a local event
- SPARC