At the end of our summer internship, we hosted a Robo Soccer tournament with other universities of applied sciences. The original arena was… well, a bit broken, kind of old, and definitely missing some key features (like ball-return ramps). So I built a new one.
Armed with a particle board base, wooden beams, a generous amount of glue, and nonmagnetic screws (robots can be picky), I put together a functional arena from scratch. One important upgrade: I added angled corner ramps to make sure the ball would roll back into play instead of getting stuck in corners.
In this shot, the ramp is already attached. I fixed the lower edge with plenty of screws to make sure it stays in place, and secured the top with glue and even more screws. Overbuilt? Maybe. But it held up perfectly during the tournament.
Here you can see the wooden cross-bracing underneath the arena. The old version was incredibly heavy – it needed a whole squad to lift it because the panels were super thick. For this one, I used thinner boards and reinforced them with wooden slats. It’s way lighter, still stable, and much easier to carry – almost like built-in handles.
A bit of paint to make it look like an actual arena, plus a felt surface for smoother ball movement. The goals? Made from leftover wood scraps – a true product of our budget crisis. But hey, they worked!
