Hi! We're Comet Robotics, a student organization at UT Dallas. This is the Organizer Guide, where we'll take you through the process of running a combat robotics competition. All the information provided is based on our experience organizing Comet Clash 2024, where we hosted over 50 robots for one day of epic robot fighting. This guide was created to serve as a reference guide for event organizers, and we hope that this guide inspires you and helps you to get started with running your own event! But first, one important question...
Running any sort of large event will probably be stressful and take longer than you expect. We made an unfathomable amount of emails and phone calls to make sure the logistics of our event were sound and secure. We spent hours on hours in the summer and during the school year figuring out how to make our event run smoothly and successfully. We don't say this to scare you, but we think it's important to know what you're getting into.
We started planning Comet Clash in June 2024 - 5 months before the event in November 2024. That might seem like a while, but all the planning in the world won't prepare you for the chaos and random stuff that will pop up before and during your event. Additionally, with our organizing team being students, we have to consider that our capacity to work on the event decreases significantly as classes start back up again.
These challenges make it all the more important to remember why you're choosing to run an event in the first place. Seeing people walk through the doors of our venue on the morning of our event, meeting fellow combat robotics enthusiasts, and seeing how much fun the competition was, made the months of planning and coordination worth it. Ready to get the ball rolling? Head to the next page to get started.