Pure competition
A season is about iteration over time and learning at each step, which makes it a natural fit for clubs, camps and courses that are focusing on teamwork and technical skills.
Competition season · one week to one semester
A ladder, a finale, and a team that gets better every round.
A competition season is a run of rounds in one arena. Teams build an entry, play round after round while a public ladder tracks who's climbing, and the top teams meet in the Haxios Cup, a finale the whole school can watch. There's no pitch and no judging panel. The ladder decides. It works as a one-week intensive, a club term or a full semester course.
Why run a season
One match teaches a lesson. A season teaches iteration.
In a single event, a team gets one shot. In a season, every round is followed by a replay, a debrief and another chance. Teams watch their entry meet other teams' entries, adjust, and find out next round whether the adjustment worked. That loop is what turns a good idea into a strategy.
The ladder adds something a one-off can't: stakes that build. A team in fourth place with two rounds left knows what it needs to do, and so does everyone watching.
Strategy that adapts
Standings and replays are public. Over a season, teams learn to read how an opponent plays and plan for it.
Winning and losing in public
A ladder means some weeks go badly. Handling that with a team, and coming back next round, is a lesson worth more than the code.
How a season works
Build. Play the rounds. Climb the ladder. Win the Cup.
Every season has the same four phases. Only the length between them changes.
Preseason
Teams form, pick an arena setup within the season's rules, and get a first entry working in the practice arena. Each team's configuration is published to the field before the first round, so everyone knows what they're up against.
Regular rounds
Each round, every team plays a set of matches. Code can improve between rounds and is resubmitted before each one. Results go straight onto the ladder, along with arena craft points for how the matches were played.
Playoffs
When the rounds are done, the top four or eight teams on the ladder enter a bracket. Seeding follows ladder position, so a strong regular season earns the easier path. Everyone else gets a final placing and a replay of every match they played.
The Haxios Cup
The finale. The last matches are screened for the whole school or program with live commentary, and the awards follow: the Cup for the bracket winner, plus awards for best arena craft, best record and biggest climb up the ladder.
How the ladder is scored
Two things move a team up the ladder: match results and arena craft, the measure of how well the matches were played. Both accumulate round by round, so the ladder is a running total rather than a one-day snapshot.
- Match points
- 3 for a win, 1 for a draw, 0 for a loss, every match, every round
- Arena craft
- Efficiency, accuracy and decisiveness points added after each round
- Tiebreaks
- Head-to-head record, then arena craft total
- Playoff seeding
- Ladder position at the end of the regular rounds
Optional: the retooling window
Longer seasons can open a short window at the midpoint where teams may change their configuration. It costs a small number of ladder points, so a team only retools when it has a reason.
The window is where the season deepens. Teams have data now. They know what worked and what didn't, and they have to decide whether to double down or change course, knowing the cost. That's a real engineering decision made with real evidence.
Season lengths
As short as a week. As long as a semester.
The four phases stretch or compress to fit the calendar. Here's what three common lengths look like.
One week
The intensive
A camp, a project week or a conference. Fast, loud and memorable.
- Day 1Form teams, choose a setup, first working entry
- Day 2Practice in the morning, rounds 1 and 2 in the afternoon
- Days 3–4Two or three rounds a day, replay and debrief between them
- Day 5Playoffs and the Haxios Cup
Four to eight weeks
The club term
An after-school club or a college society. One round a week, with the week in between for iteration.
- Weeks 1–2Form, build, practice
- Weeks 3–6One round a week; code resubmitted each week
- MidpointOptional retooling window
- Final weekPlayoffs and the Haxios Cup
Semester
The course
A credit-bearing class. Rounds every other week, with taught content between them, and the Cup as the final.
- Weeks 1–3Teams, fundamentals, first entry
- Weeks 4–12A round every two weeks; lessons tied to what the replays show
- Week 8Retooling window, with a written rationale as coursework
- Weeks 13–14Playoffs and the Haxios Cup in place of a final exam
Which arenas suit a season
Pick an arena with quick matches and room to grow.
Any arena can run as a season, but some fit the format better than others. The best ones have matches short enough to play several in a round and strategy deep enough that a team's tenth entry is meaningfully better than its first.
| Arena | Best season length | Ladder style | Why it works |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rally Racing | One week | Leaderboard by lap time, then grid-race playoffs | Time trials give every team a number to beat between rounds, and grid races make a spectacular finale. |
| Robot Sumo | One week | Head-to-head league | Rounds take minutes, so a first-time group can play a whole season in a few days. |
| Robo-Soccer | Club term or semester | League table with goals for and against | Feels like a real league. Formations and tactics improve visibly over weeks. |
| Robo-Football | Semester | League table with points and yards | Playbooks take time to build, and a season gives them that time. Roster size can step up mid-season. |
| Robo-Basketball | Semester | League table with points for and against | Pairs with statistics coursework; teams refine their shot thresholds from real season data. |
For a one-week season
Racing or Sumo. Short matches mean several rounds a day, and the ladder moves fast enough to keep the room's attention.
For a club term
Soccer, or Racing with grid races. A week between rounds is enough to study replays and rework a plan, and the league table gives the club something to talk about all term.
For a semester course
Soccer, Robo-Football or Basketball, with the Cup as the final. The team sports reward the sustained work a course allows, and the retooling window becomes a graded assignment.
Running a season
One commissioner, a few coaches, and a room that's paying attention.
A season needs someone to run the ladder. The commissioner sets the round schedule, posts standings after each round, opens the retooling window if there is one, and hosts the Haxios Cup. In a school that's usually the teacher or club sponsor; at a college it's often a student officer.
The platform handles the rest: match scheduling, running the matches, updating the ladder, keeping the replays and building the playoff bracket from the final standings.
Coaches
Sit with a team through the season. Ask what they've decided to change and why, and keep them from rebuilding everything after one bad round.
Commentators
Someone on the mic for the screened matches and the Cup. Students are often the best at this, and it turns a results night into an event.
The room
Post the ladder where people walk past it. Screen a match or two each round. By the Cup, the whole school knows who's playing.
Run a season
Tell us how long you've got.
A week, a term or a semester. We'll help you pick an arena, set the round schedule and plan the Haxios Cup.