What is RDL?
Robot Drone League (RDL) had its start in Boca Raton, Florida by Dr. Scooter Willis. His team at TechGarage created and designed the robotics competition as an initiative to help serve at-risk youth in the North Miami area.
The RDL season runs from September to January. It consists of a ten-minute match with a one-minute autonomous period at the start. RDL allows students to learn fundamental skills in Computer-Aided Design (CAD), Python coding, teamwork, communication, and mechanical and electrical engineering. Unlike other robotics competitions, students are to design, build, and code their robots without intervention from their mentors. Students work in teams of no more than fifteen members throughout the competition season to build a robot and program a drone.
A Kit of Parts may be purchased for first-year teams.
2023 RDL: SCARECROW Challenge Guide
The 2023-2024 Scarecrow Challenge includes an exciting Robot Drone League (RDL) game, centered around real-world aspects of agricultural technology. Machine design and collaboration are key to scoring maximum points.
In the 2022-2023 RDL Bermuda Triangle mission, teams, partnered with Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI), were assigned with the retrieval of the crucial sample obtained in the previous mission from the bottom of the ocean floor after an incident occurred at the end of the Dragonfly mission. WHOI asked teams to maintain connection with Underwater Acoustic Transponders (UAT) and to collect manganese while also retrieving the sample boxes.
For this challenge, teams, partnered with BioBuilders, will work to obtain crop samples to fight against an infestation of fungi and insects that have ravaged agricultural crops across the globe. With a growing population, pesticides have become an unacceptable solution to fending off this infestation. Biobuilders has asked teams to utilize their promoters and mobile accelerator to research and develop crop samples that are resistant to disease, fungi, and insects.
RDL implements Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) through the completion of grade-appropriate science and math questions.
The Scarecrow Challenge official trailer will release May 8th, 2023.
This year's game