The Community EditionMULTI-SYSTEMS ROBOTICS HACKATHON STORMS KW
From Oct. 3 to 5, GRAM Corporation hosted Swarm Games, the first large-scale multi-system robotics hackathon in Canada, at the Builders Club in Downtown Kitchener.
Around 100 student participants split up into 10 teams to build and program HeRo 2.0, an open-source robot to make multi-system robotics research more accessible.
The event was co-hosted with UW Robotics and supported by Starship Ventures, Garage Capital, Shopify, Northside Ventures and the Designing Emergence Lab at Harvard University.
Founder of Gram, Ulys Sorok; Damion Shelton, founder of Agility Robotics; Justin Werfel, leading swarm robotics researcher from Harvard and Micheal Awah, former researcher from Harvard and Engineer at GRAM made up the judging panel.
“There is no way that I could have produced what my team created on my own. And just having everyone help as a force multiple is really great,” Greg Schneider, winner of the Hackathon and incumbent intern at GRAM, said.
GRAM is a foundational AI and robotics startup that focuses on multi-robotics systems. Their first product is a general-purpose insectoid that was designed for operation in extreme environments.
“A lot of teams set up like an assembly line, so they would have specialists in soldering, and then there would be another set of people within the same team who would then focus on assembly or the setup of modules,” Olivier Szczepaniak, local host of the Hack-a-Thon, said.
The goal was to advance multi-agent robotics from research into industry. Through the participants’ efforts from the hackathon, they investigated the viability of warehouse automation, agricultural monitoring and adaptive manufacturing with collective intelligence.
Participants were provided with all the hardware needed, expert mentorship, direct recruiter access and meals all weekend.
While the original goal was to assemble and deploy 500 robots, the participants assembled a multi-system robotics project of about 60 HeRo 2.0 units. The top three demonstrations included role-based multi-system robotics, the use of multi-system robotics for space exploration, and a neural interface controlled multi-system robotics project.
“There’s many things I want to do for both Waterloo and Canada, but more so on a practical level, establishing a talent pipeline that opens up opportunity for individuals like Greg Schneider,” Ulys Sorok, founder of GRAM, said.
The City of Waterloo was an integral part in creating the hackathon due to the concentration of talent and resources beneficial to multi-system robotics available. GRAM hopes to make the hackathon an annual event.
“Waterloo is such an incredible space. If you put a challenge in front of people, people have the actual excitement to pick it up and execute it, which is a really special thing,” Schneider said.
“Waterloo is just one of these places where you can get access to space, you can get access to the people. If you get the materials here, people will come and build,” Szczepaniak said.
GRAM wants to create a talent pipeline within Waterloo. The teams competed across three categories: best biomimicry, best industrial, and most creative. Winners received cash prizes and robots, a fast-track through interviews with GRAM and other sponsor companies and access to GRAM’s multi-agent robotics research network.
“The real thing we’re trying to do with GRAM is identify who has hunger, who has the talent, and then give them the resources to execute on those things,” Sorok said.
Corrections made on Monday, Nov. 10, 2025.
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