What We Do

UNT Robotics is a student-run engineering organization at the University of North Texas. Since our founding in 2018, our mission has been simple: inspire people and teach them the skills to reach their goals in robotics. Everything we do — workshops, competitions, projects, and industry connections — is open to every major and every skill level, from first-time beginners to seasoned builders.

Workshops & Learning

We host hands-on workshops throughout the semester that take members from the fundamentals all the way to advanced builds. Past workshops have covered electrical circuits, programming microcontrollers, computer-aided design (CAD), image processing, and using Bluetooth to control robots. They’re beginner-friendly and open to all — no experience required.

We also bring industry into the room. We’ve hosted talks and demos from companies across disciplines — including L3, RoboKind, StandardUser CyberSecurity, and Bell (through ASME) — chosen to reflect the mechanical, biomedical, and computer-science backgrounds of our members.

Competitions

IEEE Region 5 Robotics Competition — 1st Place

Our IEEE Robotics & Automation Society team took first place at the IEEE Region 5 Student Robotics Competition, beating out eleven other universities for a $1,200 prize. The challenge: program a drone to autonomously identify balloons by color using computer vision, fly toward them, and pop them in a judge-determined order — entirely pre-programmed, with no human input once it launched.

Botathon

Founded in 2019, Botathon is our annual cross-disciplinary robotics competition, hosted by students with a fresh theme every year. It’s built as an approachable, hands-on introduction to robotics — anyone can enter, learn, and build something real over the course of the event.

IEEE Autonomous Rover

Our collegiate team competes in the IEEE Region 5 Autonomous Rover competition, where we’ve been commended for our mechanical-engineering prowess.

NASA Student Launch

Members have represented UNT on a NASA Student Launch team — designing, building, and flying a high-power rocket as part of NASA’s national engineering challenge.

Recreational Projects

Not every build is a competition. Our recreational projects are for anyone who just wants to make something cool with a team — there’s no time commitment, so people come and go as they like. Past and ongoing projects include a self-driving sofa (Sofabot), a racecar dashboard, a T-shirt cannon bot, and quadcopters. Anyone can pitch a project; if you can rally a team, we’ll help you build it.

Working With Others

We collaborate across campus and the community:

  • Built the dashboard and helped with the wiring harness for the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE).
  • Co-hosted a talk with the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) featuring Bell (formerly Bell Helicopter).
  • Provided volunteers and members to Engineering United for HackUNT, and ran a session on how to win a hackathon.
  • Partnered with Kappa Delta Pi, an education honor society, on a STEM workshop for future teachers — teaching programming with Scratch, gear ratios with LEGO, and computer design through skits.
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