2nd Robot Competition: CMRG Chiang Mai Robot Games 2026

Miles is continuing to chip away at his robot hobby, one competition at a time. From August 28 to 30, 2026, he joined CMRG 2026: Chiang Mai Robot Games 2026 for his second sumo robot competition.

As far as we could tell, Miles was the only contestant in his class who was not Thai. We have not found many other local options in Chiang Mai, so we translated the event materials and rules into English and did our best to understand how everything worked. The organizers were very accommodating and made a real effort to explain things to us in English, which helped Miles understand what he needed to do.

We went to the venue on Friday for registration and practice. That extra day mattered. It gave Miles time to understand the setting, see how the competition would run, and get more comfortable before the matches began.

Saturday: Glitches, Wins, and a Surprise Call

On Saturday we arrived bright and early at 8:30 a.m. Painful for a Saturday! We waited for Group C on his badge to be called.

The class included children of different ages and robots of different weights. Some of the lighter robots could be pushed out of the ring quickly, while heavier robots had their own advantages. Miles’s robot was also still dealing with a programming or power glitch that sometimes caused it to shut down during a match.

He won two matches and lost one. We thought that was the end of his run, so we headed to the airport mall for lunch.

Then we received a call: there were more matches after lunch.

We turned around, went back, and Miles won again. That earned him a place in Sunday’s final round.

Sunday: A Better Robot and a Tough Final

On Saturday night, Miles kept working. He improved the code and tried to fix the glitches before we returned on Sunday.

In his first assigned match in the final round, he faced one of the stronger robots. The match ended in a tie, and under the tie breaker rule we understood, the lighter sumo bot advanced. Miles’s run ended there.

Of course he wanted to go further. But the bigger result was visible: he had improved the robot overnight, stayed in the competition through an unexpected extra round, and learned how to handle a real event where the language, rules, and environment were not designed around him.

What He Took Home

We also made some good friends, and there may be opportunities to work with the organizers again in the future. Most importantly, Miles learned a ton.

A hobby becomes much more real when you have to show up, explain your work, deal with glitches, compete under pressure, and then go home and improve it. That is the kind of learning I want to encourage.

This was his second competition. I am curious to see what he changes before the third. You can also read about Miles’s first hardware robot competition.

What hobby or real world project has helped your child learn through competition?