LTU’s Robofest crowns winners from around the world

SOUTHFIELD—Teams from Florida in the United States and China, Hong Kong, Mexico, and Taiwan internationally, earned first-place awards at Lawrence Technological University’s 2025 Robofest World Championships, held over the weekend on LTU’s Southfield campus.

Members of high school teams competed for scholarships from Lawrence Tech worth up to $80,000 over four years, should they decide to make LTU their college choice.

More than 700 students, and their parents and coaches, from 22 countries attended.

Robofest is a series of robotics competitions for students from 4th through 12th grades. Robofest differs from other robotics competitions in that all robots competing are completely autonomous, controlled only by software developed by team members—just like robots in real-world industrial settings. Also, barriers to entry are low—the registration fee is only $75, and any robot kit and programming language can be used. A basic robot kit costs approximately $400.

The most popular Robofest competition is the Game event, in which robots are designed and programmed to accomplish a specific task that changes each year of competition, with some mission requirements revealed to competitors just prior to the event.

The 2025 Game competition was Robot Parking Valet, in which competing robots had to retrieve a “car key” from a rack, and move it, and a “car” (a cardboard box), past obstacles to a designated position on a six-foot table.

Winning the senior (grades 9-12) Game competition was team CCASS-GAME from Hong Kong. Finishing second was Team Right Heart from Kaosiung, Taiwan. In third was Team Legacy from Kumasi, Ghana. Winning the junior (grades 5-8) Game competition was team Justice from Kaosiung, Taiwan. Second place went to Team Rocket from Plymouth, Mich., while third was claimed by Team SpeedySnail 5.0 from Troy, Mich.

Other Robofest divisions include Exhibition, in which teams are free to develop any task and then build a robot to accomplish it; RoboArts, in which robots are created and programmed to perform in areas such as music and visual arts; RoboMed, in which teams create robots that perform tasks in healthcare and the life sciences; the Unknown Mission Challenge, in which mission tasks are totally unknown to teams until the day of competition; RoboParade, a parade of autonomous robot “floats;” BottleSumo, in which robots re programmed to be the first to push a bottle or the other robot off a competition table; and the Vision Centric Challenge, an advanced machine vision competition for senior high school students.

Winning the senior Exhibition category was FYW Adventure from Hong Kong. Winning the junior Exhibition category was team Solaris from Hong Kong.

Winning the senior RoboArts category was Team Visual Music 2 from Metepec, Mexico. Junior RoboArts was won by Team TL Fire Dragon Dance from Hong Kong.

The winning senior senior RoboMed team was Mars Boy from Taiwan. Team KCOBAPS1 STEAM from Taiwan won the Junior RoboMed division.

The Vision Centric Challenge winner was team Arabots Juan Escutia from Metepec, Mexico.

Winning the RoboParade was team Have Many Talents from Taiwan. Second place went to team Solar Squad from St. Clair Shores, and third place was claimed by team Sherbornes-2 from China. The senior Unknown Mission Challenge first prize went to team Bunny Racer from Taiwan, while the Junior UMC was won by Team Justice of Taiwan.

Bottle Sumo championships were claimed by Team LightUp-KnightA from China, team MSCPS Sumo from Hong Kong, team Brickbattlers from Hong Kong, team Made In Hong Kong, and team Arabots Turtle Poet from Toluca, Mexico.

“Robofest teaches so many students every year important lessons about the jobs of our increasingly robot-driven and automated future, making STEAM education fun,” said Christopher Cartwright, Robofest director and associate professor of mathematics at LTU.

Robofest was invented at LTU in 1999 by computer science professor C.J. Chung. Since inception, over 36,800 students have participated in the program. This year, more than 700 students from 22 nations competed on LTU’s campus in the World Championships. For more information about Robofest, visit www.robofest.net.

Lawrence Technological University is one of only 13 independent, technological, comprehensive doctoral universities in the United States. Located in Southfield, Mich., LTU was founded in 1932, and offers more than 100 programs through its Colleges of Architecture and Design, Arts and Sciences, Business and Information Technology, Engineering, and Health Sciences, as well as Specs@LTU as part of its growing Center for Professional Development. PayScale lists Lawrence Tech among the nation’s top 11% of universities for alumni salaries. Forbes and The Wall Street Journal rank LTU among the nation’s top 10%. U.S. News and World Report lists it in the top tier of best Midwest colleges. LTU is also listed in the Princeton Review’s “America’s Best 390 Colleges 2025,” which includes the nation’s top 15% of colleges and universities. Students benefit from small class sizes and a real-world, hands-on, “theory and practice” education with an emphasis on leadership. Activities on Lawrence Tech’s 107-acre campus include more than 60 student organizations and NAIA varsity sports.