Tackling Dummy Robot: From Foam Pads to ABB Mobile Robots

A tackling dummy robot is a padded, motorized target that runs across a football field so players can tackle it instead of each other. It exists because live tackling in practice causes injuries, and a foam dummy that does not move teaches only part of the skill. This post traces the tackling dummy from its early days around 1899 to the remote controlled robots used today, looks at the latest news from the company behind them, and explains where ABB's mobile robots and arms could fit, since ABB has no tackling dummy product.

Linemen drive two padded blocking sleds in a 2012 drill. Photo: Erik Drost / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

How the tackling dummy learned to move

Amos Alonzo Stagg is believed to have invented the first tackling dummy, in 1899, according to Wikipedia. By 1901 the Penn Quakers were adopting the "modern appliance" despite coach George Washington Woodruff's long opposition to it. The device had critics from the start. In 1913 John R. Bender of Washington State banned it, saying several of his best players had been seriously hurt on it. Players tackling a rigid, unforgiving object could get hurt in a different way than they would in a scrimmage.

A 1905 drawing from Fielding Yost shows a tackling dummy hung from a frame. Photo: Fielding Yost / Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

For most of the next century the dummy stayed still. Ryan McManus of MVP Robotics told Digital Trends in 2023 that the traditional foam dummy had been the same for more than 100 years. A player hits a stationary target, which is useful for form but not for angles or chasing. One early attempt to change this came in 1949, when Grant King, a police officer and part-time high school coach in Hamilton, Ohio, built a dummy that ran on a 60 foot electric powered track with adjustable speeds.

A player goes low at a hanging dummy at Harvard in 1910. Photo: Bain News Service via Library of Congress / Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

The modern robot began at Dartmouth. In 2010 head coach Buddy Teevens eliminated tackling from practice, which was controversial because tackling is a core skill. Engineering students were asked to build a more realistic stand-in. Their first prototype put a tackle pad on a movable robot base, but it was fragile and fell apart after tackles. Dartmouth began using a remote controlled tackling dummy in 2015, and the founders formed MVP Robotics in Vermont to build a sturdier version.

The 50 yard line at Dartmouth's Memorial Field, home of the team that dropped live tackling in practice in 2010. Photo: Kenneth C. Zirkel / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

What tackling robots and their maker are doing in 2026

The current product is the MVP Sprint. Digital Trends reported in 2023 that it costs $3,450, weighs 160 pounds with most of the weight in the base, runs up to 16 mph on grass and turf, and rights itself after being tackled. It is remote controlled, with research into autonomous or preprogrammed routines. The same article says half of NFL teams, more than 50 colleges and over 150 high schools use it. Dartmouth reported a 58 percent drop in concussions in the two years after adoption, a figure from the school and company and not an independent study.

Players run a four man tackle drill on a grass field. Photo: Pumas31 / Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

The most recent news is about the company's next market. In September 2026, Business Wire reported that MVP Robotics took its M2P Heavy vehicle to the Autonomous Ground Vehicles Prize Challenge, a wildfire logistics evaluation in Georgia's Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest. The vehicle carried payloads of up to 800 pounds over steep, uneven ground, using a vision based follow me mode. The company's own website now describes robotic systems built for performance "from the football field to the battlefield," including autonomous targets for live fire training.

An ABB Flexley Mover P603 carrying crates, the kind of mobile base that hauls loads without fixed tracks. Photo: ABB

ABB sits on the factory side of this story. ABB's Flexley Mover P603 and P604 are autonomous mobile robots that carry loads around plants and navigate with 3D Visual SLAM, the same kind of problem a self moving dummy has to solve. A six axis arm makes a poor tackling target, though. We found no ABB project in football training, so any link is a possibility. ABB arms are already used to build and test sports gear, as in our post on sports equipment manufacturing. ABB's SafeMove software, used to limit robot speed and zones around people, addresses the same worry a coach has about a fast machine near players, and its OmniCore controller runs the arms.

The ABB Flexley Mover P604, which navigates with 3D Visual SLAM. Photo: ABB

Where robotic dummies go next

For homes, there is no consumer tackling robot that we could find. The nearest relatives are robotic practice partners in sports with lighter equipment, such as the arms that return table tennis balls, which we cover in our post on table tennis robots. A 160 pound machine that moves at 16 mph needs space, a trained driver and insurance, and its cost is far above a foam pad. Small schools buy few units, so affordability decides how far the robot spreads.

A visitor plays against Omron's table tennis robot at Hannover Messe 2016. Photo: Bahnfrend / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

For teams, the next step is autonomy. A remote controlled dummy needs a person with a controller, and coaches must watch the field and the robot at once. Programmed routines could repeat a drill exactly the same way each time, and a camera guided machine could follow a ball carrier's path the way MVP's follow me mode trails a person. The 2023 article notes that an autonomous car company bought units to use as pedestrian targets, so that testers could avoid using real people.

Engineers with an ABB OmniCore controller and robot cell. Photo: ABB

The open problems are cost, evidence and skill. Teams need independent studies that confirm the injury figures, because the 58 percent number comes from the school. They also need coaches who can run a robot without losing practice time. Safety cuts both ways: the robot is built to be hit, but a heavy machine moving fast near players still needs rules for where it runs and who steers it. Mobile platforms like ABB's Flexley Movers face the same questions in plants, where people and moving machines share floors. Teams that plan such a system usually simulate the layout first, and the same habit is taught in the RobotStudio course.

A lineman hits a padded blocking sled in a 2012 practice. Photo: Erik Drost / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

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