The Lost Pathways

Stages & Timeline

1. Technical inspection and registration

   The robot must pass technical inspection before the competition, checked against the robot and operator requirements. Only one team member with the robot — the currently selected operator — may attend. The robot is marked with a number sticker, and inspection must be completed by the time specified by the organizers.

2. Maze runs

   26 Oct 2026

   Each robot is allocated a total of 20 minutes of access to the final maze, including any time spent adjusting it between runs. Teams may perform as many runs as they want within that window; the fastest successful run is the official result. After the third run, a 1-minute penalty is added to each subsequent run. First place goes to the robot with the shortest official time; robots that do not finish are ranked by how close they got to the destination square.

Rules & Regulations

• The robot must be autonomous — no remote controls allowed.
• The robot must not leave any part of its body behind while solving the maze.
• The robot may not jump over, fly over, climb, scratch, cut, burn, mark, damage or destroy the maze walls.
• The robot must not exceed 16 cm in length or width — including while changing its parameters mid-run — and must be under 10 cm tall.
• Power: onboard batteries only, not exceeding 15 V.
• Cameras or any device used to scan or memorize the maze are strictly prohibited.
• No harmful mechanisms, pneumatics or hydraulics.
• Each run must be made from the starting square; the operator may abort a run at any time.
• Touching the robot during a run aborts it, and the robot must be removed from the maze — unless it has already crossed the finish line.
• After the maze is disclosed, the operator cannot feed information about it into the robot.
• Between runs, contestants may change switch positions, adjust sensors and make repairs if the robot breaks down.
• Damaging the maze results in penalty or disqualification, and a bot leaving the maze area restarts from the starting square.
• The decisions of the referees are final and not subject to appeal; complaints must be submitted during or immediately after the match.
• Rude behaviour is not tolerated and can lead to disqualification by the head referee or event organisers.
• Rules may be subject to change according to the circumstances.

Contact Organizers

• Helpdesk

  tantrafiesta@iiitn.ac.in

• IoTics IoT and Robotics wing

  +91 74989 12500iotics@iiitn.ac.in

• Neel Kotecha

  +91 79765 77767bt25eci057@iiitn.ac.in