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Updated 6/8/26

Hello!
We’re understandably often asked varying questions about our events, but along with this we know your first event can be confusing, with so many new people and processes all within just a few hours. To this end, hopefully this guide can help ease you through the entire process, start to finish.

Pre-Event: Signing Up, Proof of Mobility and Preparing

Sign ups for BBB events are typically around 6 weeks before the event. You can find details of the next events on the BBB homepage including details of signups and spectating for the next 2 events. We’ve also put them here:

Different events will have different ways to sign up – some may be first come first served (typically our Featherweight events and Pub Beetles events) while some of the events with higher demand (Beetle Brawl, Beetle Champs and New Blood Beetles, for example) will run a lottery system, where a form is open for a set amount of time, then all the entries rolled to assign slots.

After signing up (within a few hours of the form closing for lottery events), you will receive an email confirming whether your slot is successful, and your next steps, including proof of mobility deadlines (more on this below!) and paying an entry fee for the event. We ask this is paid within 24 hours of the email being sent – this means we can secure a lineup and any unpaid slots can be redistributed to reserves. Your entry fee helps to cover costs such as venue & vehicle hire, insurance, event equipment, arena maintenance and funding future event projects.

Reserves themselves will also be sent an email asking if they would like their slot. Reserves who attend the event may not find themselves in the main competition but will always be guaranteed some friendly fights during the day (known as “whiteboards”)

Proof of Mobility will be your next big milestone for an event. Proof of Mobility is where we ask that you fill in a form that includes sending us a quick video of your robot moving without assistance, along with some other details of your bot and typically has a deadline 2 weeks before the event. Proof of Mobility is in place to ensure that everyone will be ready for the event. There’s no expectations of seeing a finished bot, don’t worry! As long as we can see your robot moving across a surface by controller, you’re all good.

In the week leading up to the event, you’ll be sent a full information email with everything you need to know about the day; timings, location, food options, transport options, tournament format, and more. In this last week, we ask that you make sure your robot is fully ready for the event. Arriving at the event with work still to do is a recipe for an unhealthy mix of roboteer frustration and potential delays to the event. To this end, we set up a home checklist sheet with everything you could need on there to make sure you’re fully prepared for the event! If you want to be extra prepared, you could get familiar with the competition rules which are run at our more serious events (New Blood, Beetle Brawl and Beetle Champs).

When packing for the event, there’s a few things to make sure you’ve got in your arsenal! These include:

• Your robot with:
  • a locking bar
  • A cradle 
  • sharp edge protection.
  • Remember we don’t allow multiple copies of a robot at our events, so just 1 with spare parts please!
• Transmitter
• Light tools (keep it small)
• Extension plug
• Battery Charger
• Lipo bag

Arriving at the Event

For the day of the event, it’s important to note the timings of the event from your info email. You shouldn’t try to enter the venue early as our volunteer crew will be very busy setting up for the event, and you will need to wait until the pits open. The ideal arriving time is between the pits open time and a little before tech checks opening. At Beetle Brawl or Champs you will have a set table, otherwise feel free to set up your pit table in any available space. The typical arrangement is 2 teams per table.

At a certain point, a call will go out over comms stating that tech checks are open. Tech checks are where the crew are able to verify your robot is safe and conforms to all the rules of the event. Robots with spinning weapons will have to pass an additional weapon failsafe test in the test box or main arena. Tech check list here. If you pass tech check, you’re good to go! If you do not, you will be told what needs to be changed and if you need support, someone from crew or one of the fellow roboteers should be able to assist. In most cases, if your robot has not passed tech check by the time they close, it will be replaced by a reserve – so make sure you’re ready before coming along!

The last thing that’ll happen before the fights begin is a quick briefing from the crew outlining the day, the competition rules, safety information and a few of the processes outlined below…

Fight Time!

Part of the safety briefing will announce that matchups are live at bbb.gd/fight. On this software you’ll be able to see who you’re fighting along with when you are fighting. At the top is a section stating ‘To the Ready Table’.

When your fight is called out for the Ready Table over the PA, or is listed in the top section of the fight list, you’ll need to bring your robot up to the pre-defined Ready Table. This table, typically close to the arena, means fights can be loaded in more quickly as the competitors in the next fight are all in one place, ready to go. It also allows you to have a chat with your competition! If you are called to the ready table and you are not ready, you should contact a member of crew immediately. They should be able to push your fight back a little. We try to pack as many fights as we can into a tight schedule so being prompt is super important!

When called down for your fight, there is a strict load in and out procedure for everyone’s safety:

1. You will turn your transmitter on and place your transmitter on the transmitter trays provided. 
2. When asked by the marshal, you will place your bot into the arena and turn it on, leaving locking bar in & sharp edge protection on.
3. When instructed by the marshal, you can pick up your transmitter for a ‘twitch test’ to make sure the key functions of your robot are working, before placing the transmitter back down. The twitch test is the only time your robot should move while the door is open.
4. The locking bars & sharp edge will be removed from all robots in the fight by the arena marshal, so leave those in place. After the door is closed and the arena secure, you will be instructed to pick up your transmitter and drive to a starting position.

On our beetle arena are some ‘Ready’ buttons to tap, indicating you’re ready for your fight! Once all is good to go, the countdown will start and on activate, you’ll have 2 minutes to duke it out. During the fight, you should make sure to listen for any instructions from the arena marshal and, if present (Beetle Brawl, Beetle Champs and New Blood) the referee, who will keep track of counting robots out, counting pins/grabs and other parts of the competition rules.

Should your robot be eliminated during the fight, or the match stopped for any reason, you should put your transmitter back onto the transmitter trays. 

At the end of the fight, it’ll be time to load out. If your robot is still functional, you’ll be asked to drive your robot back to the door, then put your transmitter back onto the tray, ready for the doors to be opened. The arena marshal will deactivate all the robots in the arena, re-apply any locking bars and get the robots back to you. At this point you should quickly take your robot and transmitter away from the arena, so the next fight can begin loading. At Beetle Brawl or Beetle Champs, you should make your way from the arena to the interview booth where you’ll be able to show off any battle scars and chat through how the fight went for you!

This process will be repeated throughout the day. At some point, if already eliminated from competition, non-competitive whiteboard fights may become available. If and when these are available, they will be announced over the PA and built into the fight queue. The same ready table process will be followed for these matches.

If you find during the day that you need to replace any components such as receivers or speed controllers that may affect your robot’s failsafe, or otherwise want to check your robots capabilities in the test box, you should find a member of the crew who will be able to supervise use of the test box and check your robot over. The test box should never be used unsupervised.

At the end of the event, typically trophies and infamous BBB Beer Mat awards chosen by our crew will be dished out before the event closes. You made it through, congratulations! Our last request will be that once the event is complete, although we appreciate you dearly, you should vacate your pit table swiftly, leaving it as clean as possible. Our crew will at this point be very tired having been at the event early for setup and still have the event packdown to complete, so making a swift getaway means the crew can wrap up quicker.

Thank you so much for being interested in our events! It’s you wonderful people coming to our events that means we’re able to run them. If you ever have any questions or queries about our events, you’re always welcome to get in touch with us via the forum, email, Facebook group or messaging our Facebook or Instagram pages.

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Disclaimer: Building, maintaining and fighting combat robots is dangerous and comes with risk that must be assessed on a person by person basis. We cannot be held liable for any personal injury, loss of property or money from partaking in building, maintaining, repairing, testing or fighting combat robots even when following our guides and rulesets.

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