ROBOTICON 2022 – our 10th annual youth robotics showcase – was a big, fun success!
ROBOTICON by the Numbers
In all, over 70 youth robotics teams – more than 1200 youth– joined us throughout October at University Mall, sharing their engineering skills and achievements, and introducing hundreds of people to robotics and drone programs for all ages, many for the very first time.
ROBOTICON featured seven different competitions, including two REC Foundation VEX tournaments: VEX IQ and VEX Robotics Competition. We also held our inaugural Combat Robotics event, with teams from around Florida pitting their 3 lb weight class and under fighting robots against one another, and hosted the area’s first youth Aerial Drone Competition showcase.
We handed out more than 40 custom laser-etched ROBOTICON trophies to teams and gave
out a dozen Volunteer awards to members of our amazing production crew. We live streamed nearly 40 hours of content, hosted an Alumni Social, and coordinated several workshops each weekend, including a great series of video production classes held at the Tampa Bay Community Network in the mall. Over 50 volunteers helped run ROBOTICON throughout October, many returning each weekend to help staff the event.
Event Results & Media
You can find a full list of award winners across all programs on our Event Results page. Recorded video of matches and interviews can be found in the ROBOTICON 2022 Playlist on the ROBOTICON YouTube channel.
Event photos can be found at the ROBOTICON Flickr Gallery, with individual albums for each event weekend.
And if you liked our ROBOTICON 2022 logo, designed by Tampa Bay artist Allante Sparks and appearing on volunteer shirts and event media, you can get your own shirts and other ROBOTICON swag in the AMRoC Threadless Shop!
Local Impact
Teams stayed in local hotels, utilizing more than 30 rooms across multiple nights, ate at local restaurants, shopped generously at the mall and in the mall food court, and along with ROBOTICON production costs, generated an estimated $15,000 in local economic impact over the course of the month.
ROBOTICON also generated immense interest among youth and families seeing competitive
youth robotics programs for the first time, with several families joining AMROC programs during the event, and teachers signing up to learn more.
Thank You to our Sponsors and Community Partners!
ROBOTICON wouldn’t be possible without our incredible program partners: the Foundation for Community Driven Innovation, AMRoC Fab Lab, PLUGHITZ Corp, the Florida High Tech Corridor, SOFWERX, Bay Area Manufacturers Association, Women in Defense, Frontier Communications, Scoutlier, LT3 Academy, the Robotics Education & Competition Foundation, FIRST Robotics Competition, Stryke Esports, and Tampa Bay Community Network with in-kind support from RD Management and Soaring City Innovation Partnership.
All of these organizations understand the importance of supporting competitive STEM programs because of the critical 21st Century skills these programs build in participating youth. In addition to learning how to design, build and program sophisticated machines, team members are learning communications and teamwork skills, how to document their processes through Computer Aided Drafting and Engineering Notebooks, budget and create business plans, and gain vital life lessons in resiliency, perseverance, dedication, professionalism, public speaking and more.
We look forward to seeing everyone back next October, for an even bigger and better ROBOTICON 2023! Good luck to all teams in their new seasons!