COMETS GIVING DAYS 2025

Who we are:

Comet Robotics at UT Dallas is a student organization with the goal of promoting robotics at UT Dallas and in the surrounding area through outreach, projects and workshops. We're building a world-class robotics program, competing with colleges and universities across the globe in combat robotics competitions, and programs like VEX U and University Rover Challenge.

With membership open to all students regardless of major or prior experience in robotics, we provide students with the opportunity to collaborate and compete with like-minded individuals to gain experience and refine their knowledge of designing, building, and programming robots. As an organization, we aim to build and sustain an engaged body of students hoping to expand upon their coursework and gain real-world experience, developing skills in project management, leadership, teamwork, and much more. 

Originally started with ‘The Blender’, our 120lb world championship winning BattleBot, combat robotics at UT Dallas has history going back to 2004. Since the club’s revival in 2021, we have expanded to dozens of 1lb, 3lb, and 12lb weight class combat robots and grown to include more competitive robotics projects. 

Achievements:

This academic year alone, we've achieved significant milestones as a club, including but not limited to:

• Hosting Comet Clash, our first combat event open to the public. We had 48 competitors come and compete including bots from 10 different Universities.
• Competing at 5 public combat robotics competitions with 7 podium finishes
• Last year we made a 15lb combat robot and took it to compete in BattleBots Metal Mayhem at SXSW. This year, we took the same robot, now 12lbs, plus 2 more 3lb robots, to the biggest robot competition in the country NHRL in Norwalk Connecticut getting 9^th place in the 3lb weight class out of 96 competitors.
• Built a Mars Rover to compete in the University Rover Challenged. Developed a custom drivetrain, autonomous movement, and life detection system.
• Competed in the VEXU competition in Houston and placed 5th in skills. COMET VEX U is currently ranked 55th in the world.
• Hosting 10 outreach events in collaboration with local schools, introducing over 500 middle and high schoolers to robotics and the engineering design process through our custom 3D-printed combat robotics kit, Combat Blocks.

Goals:

$750 ChessBots

Fund replacement chess piece toppers for ChessBots, and a new set of electronics in order to finish the project.

$1250 IT/Marketing Equipment

Allow us to purchase new hard drives and networking equipment to manage our design files, club media, and robot models and allow the club to capture and share our proudest moments with new camera equipment and marketing gear.

$1500 Solis Rover Project

Fund the trip for the Solis Rover Project to travel to the Mars Rover Testing Site for competition in the Utah desert.

$1750 NHRL Combat Robotics Competition

NHRL is the biggest event in combat robotics hosted in Norwalk Connecticut. This would help cover all the travel costs associated with going and competing.

$2000 VEXU World Championship Registration

Fund VEXU's registration and travel costs for the 2026 VEX Robotics World Championship.

None of this would be possible without the support of people like you, thank you.