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Mobile Robotics Hackathon 2026 – illustration of a humanoid, a service robot, drones and a robot dog on a workbench

10 and 11 October 2026 · TU Dresden, Barkhausenbau

103 participants · 10 federal states · 6 challenge tracks · 1 winning team

#makebotsmove

Two days that made bots move.

Name: Mobile Robotics Hackathon 2026
Start: 2026-10-10T09:00:00+02:00
End: 2026-10-11T18:00:00+02:00
Location: TU Dresden, Barkhausenbau

103 people from 10 German federal states turned the Barkhausenbau into a test track for drones, rovers, legged robots and service bots. Here is how the weekend went.

01 · THE RECAP

Impressions

Two days in two minutes.

Teams, mentors and machines across the whole weekend, cut down to two minutes. Subtitles are built in, so it works without sound.

02 · IN NUMBERS

In numbers

103 builders, 10 federal states, one weekend.

Free entry, open hardware and a test zone that never closed. This is what the two days produced.

103

Participants

From 10 federal states

Students, startups, researchers and first timers. Most arrived solo and found a team on site.

6

Challenge tracks

Navigation to service bots

Teams picked a track on Saturday morning and had until Sunday afternoon to make something move.

2

Days

Saturday to Sunday

Mentors on site all weekend, the test zone open around the clock and a good deal of overnight hacking.

1

Winning team

UnaMano

Picked by an independent jury on the progress made over the weekend and the final pitch.

Team UnaMano takes the win

The jury picked UnaMano for the progress the team made over the weekend and for their final pitch on Sunday. Every member of the team gets free entry to the Brains on Silicon Conference 2027.

03 · PHOTOS

In pictures

Two days in the Barkhausenbau.

Photos by Felix Meutzner and the organising team.

Participants in the lecture hall at the opening of the Mobile Robotics Hackathon 2026 — Photo: Felix Meutzner

Participants gathering in the foyer between sessions — Photo: Felix Meutzner

Participants watching a mobile robot run in the test zone — Photo: Felix Meutzner

Participants watching a robot run from the atrium balconies — Photo: Felix Meutzner

A team testing its rover in the test zone — Photo: Felix Meutzner

A mentor helping a team at their workstation — Photo: Felix Meutzner

A legged robot walking through a corridor next to two participants — Photo: Felix Meutzner

A participant working with a service bot — Photo: Felix Meutzner

A participant programming a collaborative robot arm — Photo: Felix Meutzner

Participants talking over lunch in the CeTI bar — Photo: Felix Meutzner

Test zone signage reading make bots move

A team delivering its final pitch on stage — Photo: Felix Meutzner

The whole hackathon crowd gathered around the winning team and their cheque — Photo: Felix Meutzner

The LaunchHub42 building in the evening — Photo: Felix Meutzner

04 · THE ECOSYSTEM

Partner & Supporters

Built with the strongest robotics ecosystem in Eastern Germany.

The hackathon was powered by the Deutsche Telekom Chair of Communication Networks at TU Dresden, together with the leading robotics research clusters, industry partners, startups and networks across Saxony and beyond.