Crimson Robotics Beetleweight Program 2026

Crimson Robotics is Washington State University’s combat robotics club. Teams in Crimson Robotics design, manufacture, and compete with 3-pound “Beetleweight” robots. Twice a year, the club hosts and livestreams a combat robotics tournament called the Crimson Bot Brawl, held on the Washington State University Pullman campus. The competition features competitors from Crimson Robotics as well as fighters from all over the Pacific Northwest. 

Crimson Robotics’ mission is to create open access combat robotics, as it can be cost-prohibitive and overly intimidating otherwise. Our club provides the education and resources necessary to create and compete with combat robots to all Washington State University students at absolutely no cost, regardless of experience or choice of major.

Members of Crimson Robotics learn practical engineering skills such as CAD, technical drawings, designing for manufacturing, and much more. In addition, they gain valuable communication and leadership skills through working in interdisciplinary teams for all club projects. Members can work at their own pace and prioritize which skills they would like to focus on building. The skills that Crimson Robotics members learn while creating robots directly lead to success in finding internships and industry jobs.

A donation towards Crimson Robotics helps ensure that the club can continue to offer practical engineering experience to all Washington State University students at no personal cost. The money will go towards the material and manufacturing costs that go into creating robots. Between electronics, metals, and machine time, even small robots can pose a significant financial challenge, and Crimson Robotics produces a few dozen each year. The money will also go towards updating the arena with a ventilation system to improve safety and a smaller test arena that allows for easier testing of the combat robots.  A donation will also help fund the Crimson Bot Brawl, which, as a means of furthering our goal of open access to combat robotics, has no cost to compete and is open to the public to spectate for free both online and in person.