WRO® Open Championship
Americas – USA 2026

Registration is only possible through your country's WRO® National Organizer. Teams must first qualify through a sanctioned WRO® event in their country, after which their National Organizer manages registration. Direct individual registration is not available.

Friendship Night takes place on Sunday, September 27, after the Closing Ceremony. Buses depart the Ontario Convention Center at 3:00 PM sharp and arrive at the park at approximately 4:00 PM, with the evening running until 11:00 PM. Park admission and round-trip transportation are included in the registration fee — Friendship Night is part of the registration package rather than a separate purchase. There is no evening program on Saturday.

No. Friendship Night on Sunday, September 27 is part of the registration package and is not sold or priced separately. Admissions were reserved and paid for on behalf of registered teams and cannot be returned or credited. Teams that choose not to attend are welcome to skip the evening, but the registration fee remains unchanged and no portion is refundable or transferable to another cost.

Friday: check-in runs 11:00 AM–4:00 PM, practice from 12:00 PM, the single Official Practice Run at 3:30–4:00 PM, Opening Ceremony 4:00–5:00 PM, dinner 5:00–6:00 PM. There is no competition or practice on the field after the ceremony.

Saturday: doors open at 8:00 AM for RoboMission and 8:20 AM for other categories, competition runs through roughly 4:00 PM, dinner 5:00–6:00 PM, and there is no evening program.

Sunday: doors open at 7:00 AM — one hour earlier than Friday and Saturday — finals run through the morning, Closing Ceremony 2:00–3:00 PM, and buses leave for Disneyland at 3:00 PM.

Lunch is 12:00–1:00 PM every day. Full category-by-category timings are in the Schedule section above.

No. There is no RoboMission Surprise Rule on Day 1 of competition (Saturday, September 26).

No refunds are possible after registration has been completed. This includes any portion of the fee associated with Friendship Night, which was committed on your team's behalf and cannot be recovered. Please confirm your team's participation with your National Organizer before finalizing registration.

The prices listed are base fees in USD. Your National Organizer may charge a higher amount to account for local taxes, administrative costs, and currency conversion fees. Contact your National Organizer directly for your country's exact pricing.

Visa requirements vary by country. We strongly recommend checking entry requirements well in advance. Visa invitation letters are provided to National Organizers only — if your teams require a letter to support their visa applications, the National Organizer for your country must contact us directly and we will provide one promptly.

We strongly recommend flying into Ontario International Airport (ONT), only 1.5 miles (2.4 km) from the convention center. A complimentary shuttle to all partner hotels is included. If you fly into LAX (~60 miles away), you will need to arrange your own transportation. Because Friendship Night runs on Sunday evening, please plan return flights for Monday, September 28 or later.

Lunch is included all three days, 12:00–1:00 PM, as a to-go meal at the arena. Dinner is included Friday and Saturday, 5:00–6:00 PM, as a to-go boxed sandwich meal from the convention center. There is no convention center dinner on Sunday because teams depart for Friendship Night at Disneyland at 3:00 PM. Breakfast is not included — see our dining section for nearby options.

Project documentation for both Future Innovators and Future Engineers is due Friday, September 11, 2026. Submissions received after September 11 will not be accepted, so we recommend submitting well ahead of the deadline.

Future Engineers: teams submit one link to their GitHub repository through the WRO event portal. No other submission format is accepted. Under the WRO 2026 Future Engineers rules, the repository must be public at the time the link is submitted and must remain public for at least 12 months after the event. It should contain your engineering documentation, photos of the vehicle from every side plus a team photo, links to your autonomous driving videos, the code for every component you programmed, and a README of at least 5,000 characters written in English. Teams also bring a hard copy of their documentation to the event.

Future Innovators: teams submit a project report and a project video. The report is a PDF of no more than 20 single-sided pages and no more than 15 MB, following the structure set out in the official rules. Reports longer than 20 pages are not judged and receive zero points. The video is a maximum of 90 seconds and 100 MB. If your team used any AI tools, the report must state which systems were used, for what purpose, and to what extent. Teams also bring at least two printed copies of the report to the event, one to hand to the judges and one for visitors to read. The deadline applies to all three age groups (Elementary, Junior, and Senior).

Full requirements are set out in each category’s rules and rubric, linked in the Categories section above.

All official WRO® 2026 rules, game rules, and Q&A are published on the WRO® Association website at wro-association.org. Direct links to each category's rules are in the Categories section above.