STUDENT COMPETITIONS
Join the SoutheastCon 2026 Discord at: https://discord.gg/VGaEvWCZpS
The SoutheastCon discord is the official communication method for student competitions!
There are 2 registrations that students need to be aware of! Conference Registration and Competition Registration.
Conference Registration: Every student competing in a student competition must be registered for SoutheastCon 2026 by the start of the student competitions (March 13th 2026). There is a cost for registering for the conference and registration and costs are addressed on the SoutheastCon main page. Students must be an IEEE member to compete in student competitions and the conference registration will ask for your IEEE member number. Therefore, you will want to be registered as an IEEE member before you register for the conference in order to get the IEEE member conference rate.
Competition Registration: Each competition has its own registration process and is detailed on the tabs below. There is no cost to register for a competition. Students can register for the competitions before they register for the conference as long as they make sure they are registered for the conference before the start of the competition.
Hardware Competition
Key Dates
March 30th, 2025 Draft rules are posted. Click here to see the draft rules.
September 2025 Competition rules are finalized
January 1st , 2026 Registration opens. After this date, teams can register for this competition by clicking here
February 11th , 2026 Registration for the Competition closes.
March 12th , 2026 Hardware room opens. Students can start checking in and practicing
March 14th , 2026 Competition occurs at SoutheastCon. Competition rounds will start by 8 am and can run until early afternoon. Finals will occur in the evening at the banquet
Team Size/Structure
There is no limit on how many students can be on a team. However, any student touching the robot during the competition must be registered for SoutheastCon. Each Region 3 branch is allowed one robot in “Main” bracket. Any robot (Region 3 or not) can be in “Open” bracket. The only difference between Main and Open is that Main is competing for prize money and finals for Main is at the Saturday banquet.
Key Dates
January 1st , 2026 Competition rules are posted and registration opens. After this date teams can register by clicking here
February 11th , 2026 Registration for the Competition closes.
March 12th-15th , 2026 Competition occurs at SoutheastCon.
Key Dates
January 1st , 2026 Competition rules are posted and registration opens. Teams can register for this competition by clicking here
February 11th , 2026 Registration for the Competition closes.
March 13th-14th , 2026 Competition occurs at SoutheastCon. Competition will occur over the course of a few hours on either March 13th or 14th. The date and expected time frame (morning/afternoon) will be finalized by the posting of the rules.
Expected team size:
– Each branch can expect to have 1 team in this competition
– Official team sizes are still being determined. Students should plan for no more than 5 people on a team. Teams will be able to have graduates and undergraduates on the same team but graduates will count as 2 undergrads.
Teams can view the rules of this competition by clicking here
Key Dates
January 1st , 2026 Ethics registration opens. Teams can register by clicking here
February 11th , 2026 Registration for the Ethics Competition closes.
March 13th , 2026 Ethics prelims occurs at SoutheastCon. Prelims will have a writing and a grading round. Teams can expect the writing round to occur before the Friday reception and the grading to occur at least 1 hour after the start of the reception.
March 14th , 2026 Ethics finals occurs at SoutheastCon. Finals will be in the morning and each team should plan to spend 30 minutes with judges.
Expected Team Sizes:
– Each branch can have 1 team in this competition
– Team size will be 3 undergrad students (teams can have a graduate student but they will count as 2 undergrads). Each team will have to also bring a grader
Students can view the competition rules by clicking here
Key Dates
There is no registration for this competition! Students are automatically registered by submitting a networking pitch.
March 13th 8 am – 14th noon, 2026 Networking competition occurs at SoutheastCon
Expected team size:
– Students compete as individuals and not a team
– There is no limit on the number of students that compete from a university
– This is a perfect competition for students to do in addition to other SoutheastCon competitions. This is fully self driven and would not overlap with any other competition
Key Dates
January 1st , 2026 Competition rules are posted and registration opens
February 11th , 2026 Registration for the Competition closes.
March 13th-14th , 2026 Competition occurs at SoutheastCon. Students will be assigned time slots to present during these days. We will work with student schedules to find the best time slots.
Students can view this competition rules by clicking here
Key Dates
March 13th at 8 PM EST , 2026 Registration for the Competition closes. Meaning that students must turn in their t-shirt to the front desk at SoutheastCon and submit their design reviews by this time. There is no form registration for this competition.
March 14th , 2026 Winners are announced at the SoutheastCon banquet.
Each branch can submit one design for this competition. If branches are submitting designs to get points in hardware, the points will only go to one robot per design entry. By default, the points will be given to the branches main robot. If the branch does not have a robot in main then it will go to the open robot.
See competition rules by clicking here
Key Dates
January 1st , 2026 Registration opens. Branches can register and submit their URL by clicking here
March 7th , 2026 Competition registration closes. Students must submit their website by theis point and be prepared for it to be graded any time after this point.
March 14th , 2026 Winners are announced at the SoutheastCon banquet.
Each branch can submit one branch website to this competition.
Timeline
Request form for the student travel rebate will be posted to this page by January 1st 2026. Branches will have until February 1st 2026 to request a travel rebate. This will be a hard deadline! Branches that request a rebate after February 1st will not be able to receive a rebate!
The official rebate policy will be set by March 1st. At a minimum branches can expect to receive the IRS milage amount for traveling to and from SoutheastCon (one per branch, starting from their University and traveling to the hotel at SoutheastCon). Branches can also expect to receive a per diem for their branch chair, counselor, and one student in a student competition.
Branch chairs and counselors will be required to attend a in person student branch training to receive their travel rebate. Branches will also be required to attend the banquet at SoutheastCon to receive a rebate. Any additional requirements will be posted by February 1st.