ABU Robocon is the premier robotics competition for the Asia-Pacific region, held annually since 2002 under the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union. Each year a new challenge theme is set, historically inspired by traditional sports and cultural activities from the host country, and teams of university students from across Asia and Oceania design, build, and program robots to compete in head-to-head matches. Each team typically fields two robots: a manual robot operated by a human and an autonomous robot that acts independently. Vietnam universities, particularly Hanoi University of Science and Technology, have been the dominant force in the competition history with multiple consecutive victories. Japan and China are the other historically strong performers. The event rotates host country annually with recent editions held in Cambodia, India, Mongolia, and the Philippines.