Unibots 2026

Queen Mary University of London had the pleasure of hosting Day 1 of the Unibots London Finals 2026!

Unibots is a student-led inter-university robotics competition that brings together some of the UK's most talented student engineers from universities including Cambridge, Oxford, Imperial, UCL, KCL, QMUL, and many more.

This year's challenge pushed teams to design fully autonomous robots capable of collecting ping pong balls and ball bearings, then depositing them into their scoring zone across a 150 cm wall. Seeing the different engineering approaches, creative mechanisms, and problem-solving strategies on display was a fantastic reminder of what student engineering communities can achieve.

As one of the organisers of Unibots, the Queen Mary Electronics Society was proud to host the first day of the finals on 27 June. Alongside the main competition, we also ran a surprise engineering challenge where participants were randomly grouped into teams and tasked with building something that could fly the furthest. From paper gliders to some surprisingly interesting designs, it was a brilliant way to encourage collaboration, creativity, and a bit of friendly competition.

We can't wait to see how Unibots continues to grow in the years ahead.