The best way to learn engineering, robotics, coding and innovation is not always through a textbook. Sometimes, it begins with a challenge: Can you build it? Can you make it work? Can you make it better?
Competitions give students an opportunity to take what they learn and apply it to an open-ended problem. They have to build, test, make mistakes, debug, rethink their approach and work with a team.
This year, The STEM Makers is inviting student teams to explore and participate in the open competitions conducted through the Avishkaar Community and Avishkaar League 2026.
Whether your child is already building robots or is just beginning to explore robotics, coding and making, these competitions offer different pathways to experiment, create and compete.
What is Avishkaar League?
The Avishkaar League 2026 brings together challenges in robotics, coding, innovation and game design. According to Avishkaar, the league has engaged more than 100,000 students, 6,000 schools and participants from 30+ countries over its journey.
The 2026 season features four major challenges:
- IRC League 2026 – Robotics & Coding
- Avishkaar Makeathon 2026 – Innovation & Project Presentation
- Avishkaar CodeQuest 2026 – Game Design & Coding
- Robo Battlegrounds 2026 – Robot Battle Championship
The competitions provide different ways for students to demonstrate their creativity—some through physical robots, some through coding and games, and others through innovative solutions and project presentations.
1. IRC League – Robotics & Coding
If your child enjoys building robots, programming and solving missions, the IRC League provides a structured robotics challenge.
Teams work with robots to solve competition tasks that require a combination of:
- Mechanical design
- Robot construction
- Programming
- Sensors and control
- Strategy
- Problem-solving
- Teamwork
The IRC League has state-wise zonal rounds followed by an international finale. For 2026, the zonal rounds are scheduled across several cities between October and December, with the international finale scheduled in Delhi in January 2027.
For students who enjoy the combination of building + coding + competition strategy, this can be an exciting way to take robotics beyond classroom projects.
2. Avishkaar Makeathon – From Idea to Innovation
Not every student wants to compete by driving a robot around an arena.
Some students enjoy asking:
“What problem can I solve?”
The Avishkaar Makeathon 2026 is designed around innovation and project development. Students are encouraged to explore an idea, develop a solution and communicate their innovation.
The current 2026 Makeathon describes itself as a celebration of science and technology where young innovators can explore their ideas and showcase what they create. Stage 1 involves virtual project presentation, followed by a Stage 2 international finale.
Students get an opportunity to work through a process similar to an engineering or innovation project:
Identify → Research → Ideate → Design → Build → Test → Improve → Present
This makes the Makeathon particularly interesting for students who enjoy science projects, engineering, electronics, robotics, sustainability and creative problem-solving.
3. Avishkaar CodeQuest – Build Your Own Game
For students who love coding, storytelling and games, Avishkaar CodeQuest provides a different route into technology.
Instead of building a physical robot, students can turn their ideas into interactive digital experiences.
Game development brings together:
- Computational thinking
- Programming
- Logic
- Storytelling
- Game mechanics
- User interaction
- Problem-solving
- Creativity
The 2026 CodeQuest Stage 1 runs from September to November, followed by a live hackathon format at the international finale in Delhi.
For a student who spends time creating games, experimenting with code or wondering how games actually work, this can be an opportunity to move from playing games to designing them.
4. Robo Battlegrounds – Put Your Robot to the Test
What happens when two robots enter an arena and only one can control the game?
Robo Battlegrounds brings a competitive, game-based approach to robotics.
The 2026 Robo Battlegrounds challenge includes Robo Soccer, where teams build and practise with robots before competing in matches.
This type of competition brings together:
- Mechanical design
- Drivetrain design
- Motor control
- Robot handling
- Strategy
- Team coordination
- Rapid decision-making
- Testing and optimisation
It is not enough to simply have a robot that moves.
The real challenge is to build a robot that can perform reliably under pressure.
Why Participate in Open Competitions?
A competition gives a student something that a regular classroom assignment often cannot provide:
A problem without a single correct answer.
Students have to make decisions.
Should the robot be faster or more stable?
Should the design be simple or sophisticated?
Should we change the mechanism or change the strategy?
Why did the prototype fail?
What can we change before the next attempt?
These questions naturally introduce students to the engineering design process.
Build → Test → Fail → Analyse → Improve
At The STEM Makers, we believe that failure during a build is not wasted effort.
A robot that doesn’t complete a task gives us data.
A mechanism that breaks tells us something about the design.
A program that doesn’t behave as expected gives us an opportunity to debug.
A strategy that fails during a match becomes information for the next round.
This is where competition becomes a learning experience.
What Students Learn Beyond the Competition
Participation in technology competitions can help students develop a combination of technical and human skills:
- Engineering design thinking
- Computational thinking
- Programming
- Mechanical understanding
- Electronics and sensors
- Problem-solving
- Teamwork
- Communication
- Documentation
- Time management
- Testing and optimisation
- Learning from failure
- Working under constraints
The objective should not be to create students who know how to follow instructions.
It should be to create students who can look at a problem and figure out what to do next.
Which Competition Could Be Right for Your Team?
Different students enjoy different kinds of challenges.
Students can explore the competition formats and registration details through the official Avishkaar League platform.
How The STEM Makers Can Help
At The STEM Makers, our approach to competition preparation goes beyond assembling a robot or practising a fixed sequence of movements.
We focus on understanding why something works.
Students work on:
1. Understanding the Engineering
Rather than simply copying a design, students explore concepts such as:
- Gear ratios
- Torque
- Friction
- Centre of gravity
- Drivetrain design
- Mechanisms
- Sensors
- Control systems
2. Building and Prototyping
Students learn to convert an idea into a working model.
The first version may not work.
That is expected.
The important question becomes:
What should we change?
3. Programming and Debugging
Students gradually develop the ability to:
- Write programs
- Test code
- Identify bugs
- Debug systematically
- Integrate sensors
- Improve robot behaviour
4. Testing and Optimisation
Competition preparation involves repeated testing.
Students learn to measure performance, identify weaknesses and make incremental improvements rather than making random changes.
5. Strategy and Teamwork
A competition team is more than a group of students working on the same robot.
Students learn to divide responsibilities, communicate decisions, handle disagreements and develop a common strategy.
Open Competition Does Not Mean You Have to Be an Expert
One of the most valuable aspects of open competitions is that students can enter at different levels of experience.
A beginner may start by understanding how a robot moves.
Another student may already be comfortable with programming.
An experienced student may want to optimise a mechanism or develop a more sophisticated strategy.
The important thing is to start building.
The learning happens through the process.
From Classroom Learning to the Real World
In school, students often learn concepts separately.
In a competition, those concepts come together.
Physics influences the robot’s movement.
Mathematics influences measurements and strategy.
Programming controls behaviour.
Mechanical engineering determines how the robot moves.
Data helps evaluate performance.
Communication helps the team work together.
And creativity connects everything.
That is what makes hands-on competitions such a powerful extension of STEM education.
Join The STEM Makers
If your child enjoys building, coding, experimenting, designing or solving problems, this could be the right time to take the next step.
The STEM Makers is inviting students and teams to explore the open competitions available through the Avishkaar Community and Avishkaar League 2026.
You don’t need to begin with a perfect robot.
You begin with a question.
“What can we build?”
Then you build.
You test.
You fail.
You learn.
You improve.
And eventually, you compete.
Ready to Build?
Join The STEM Makers and prepare your team for the Avishkaar competitions.
Explore the current competitions, choose a challenge that matches your interests, and start your innovation journey.
Build. Code. Innovate. Compete.
Competition categories, eligibility, timelines and rules are subject to the official Avishkaar competition guidelines. Please check the respective competition page for the latest information before registering.