Space Robotics Meets Live Music at ROBOPALOOZA 2026 

Robots, rock music, and rovers. That is not a typo, and if you have not heard of ROBOPALOOZA yet, this is your introduction.

This October, the third annual ROBOPALOOZA festival lands in the San Francisco/Oakland Bay Area, taking place October 17-18, 2026 at UC Berkeley and aboard the USS Hornet aircraft carrier. It is two days of space robotics competitions, live demonstrations, a hackathon, and live music, all built around one idea: the cutting edge of robotics and AI deserves a festival, not just a conference room.

Where it started

ROBOPALOOZA began in 2024 in the Mojave Desert, at the LUNAplex Proving Grounds in Lucerne Valley, California. Teams competed to remotely operate the Helelani rover, a 700-pound planetary rover from the Pacific International Space Center for Exploration Systems (PISCES) in Hawaii, through an obstacle course and up a steep hill to capture a flag. Our own Anna Metke was there as the event's broadcast host, guiding the livestream through the competition, the demos, and the music. The winning team drove Helelani all the way from Perth, Australia, which is exactly why the festival packed up and headed there next.

In 2025, ROBOPALOOZA moved to Perth, Western Australia, home to some of the world's largest mining operations and a serious robotics and automation industry to match. We were proud to join as a technology partner for that event, alongside IEEE, the Australian Automation and Robotics Precinct, and a lineup of robotics companies and universities from across the region. The festival paired a lunar robot teleoperation competition with STEM programming, a startup pitch battle, and live rock and roll, proving that "robots and mining" and "robots and music" are not as far apart as they sound.

 

What's next

For 2026, ROBOPALOOZA is bringing that same mix to the Bay Area with an even bigger program: a Multi-Robot IEEE Lunar Telepresence Competition, a Robot Rodeo with live demonstrations, a career fair, an onboard hackathon on the USS Hornet, and live music running through both days. The event is also hosting the IEEE Summer School on Telerobotics and Cyborg Technologies, bringing in experts to work through real design challenges for multi-robot teleoperation ahead of the competition.

It is a strange and wonderful combination on paper. Space robotics, physical AI, live concerts, food trucks, all in one weekend. But that is the point. ROBOPALOOZA exists to make cutting-edge robotics feel like something anyone can walk up to, ask questions about, and get excited over, instead of something locked away in a lab.

We have been part of this festival since the beginning, and we are looking forward to seeing where it goes next.

Learn more at robopalooza.space.