How URKL works, as reported: five five-minute rounds, three timeouts, top two per group

URKL, the league run by EngineAI of Shenzhen, is the sport's most structured competition: fixed hardware, a published scoring method and a multi-stage season. This article sets out the format as two Chinese reports described it after the 16 July opening night in Shenzhen. Where a detail comes from them alone, it is attributed to them.

THE FIGHT

According to Science and Technology Daily and ITHome, an URKL bout is one team against another over five rounds of five minutes each. Within a round, robots score by landing effective strikes on valid parts of the opponent's body. The side that wins more rounds wins the fight. The opening bout, White Eagle against Matador, was recorded as 3-2 for Matador over five rounds, which is exactly that structure.

ITHome adds a rule on pauses: each team has three tactical timeouts, each no longer than two minutes, with only one usable per round. A timeout can be used for discussing tactics, emergency repairs or swapping the robot. If a timeout runs over, the team is penalised on points.

THE MACHINES

Both reports say the league uses EngineAI's full-size T800 as its standard fighting machine, and Science and Technology Daily says the T800's software and body interfaces are opened to every team for secondary development. ITHome says EngineAI supplies each team with three T800 robots. Science and Technology Daily says the contest is meant to test motion control, dynamic balance, perception and decision-making, and structural protection. Our earlier article on the T800 and the Unitree G1 covers the hardware itself.

THE SEASON

Science and Technology Daily says more than 200 teams entered and 32 advanced, from China, the United States, Poland, Singapore and elsewhere. It describes the format as a combination of open qualifying, a group double round-robin and a double-elimination knockout. ITHome says 60 teams were shortlisted before the 32 were chosen, that the group stage opens in October with the teams split across four groups, and that the groups are tied to four cities: Beijing, Zhengzhou, Shanghai and Shenzhen. It describes the group stage as one-on-one, five-round double round-robin, with the top two teams in each group going to the global final.

On those figures, four groups with two qualifiers each would put eight teams in the final. That count is our arithmetic from the report, not a number either source states. ITHome's account is also not fully consistent: it speaks of 32 teams splitting into four groups and, in the same passage, of 16 qualified teams being drawn into four groups. Our own record describes an August play-in that cut the field from 32 to 16 before the October group stage.

The final is reported for December 2026 to January 2027. Neither report gives group-stage fixtures, dates or venues, and we have none. Our record carries the later rounds as announced without fixtures.

THE PRIZE

Both reports give the final's total prize pool as 14 million yuan, with the champion taking a pure-gold belt or an equivalent cash value; Science and Technology Daily puts the belt's value at about ten million yuan. Our league page carries a 10 million yuan prize pool from earlier coverage. The two figures do not match and we have not seen an EngineAI statement settling which is current, so treat the amount as unconfirmed.

WHAT IS STILL OPEN

The format above is as reported by two outlets in July. It has not been checked against an EngineAI rulebook, and the group stage has not produced a published schedule or result that we can verify. Those are the facts that matter next, and this record will carry them when a source publishes them.