The RoboCupRescue Rapidly Manufactured Robot Challenge (RMRC) returns to in-person competition from the 4th to 10th of July, 2023, in Bordeaux, France! Please see the official RoboCup 23 Bordeaux website for details of the broader in-person competition.
In-person only competition:
We will be running the competition in a similar manner to the way in which it was last run fully in-person, in Sydney 2019. We will not be having a formal hybrid or online competition as we did in 2021 and 2022. Having said that, we do encourage folks who aren’t able to make it in-person to keep sharing their developments with us!
Who can participate:
There are two overlapping competitions that make use of the 30 cm and 60 cm scale “Mini Arena”. The RoboCupRescue Rapidly Manufactured Robot Competition (RMRC) is a Junior competition, with age restrictions on team members, and has its own awards. RMRC sits within a wider RoboCupRescue Robot League that is also open to teams without age restriction. Participants in RMRC are also participants in the RoboCupRescue Robot League, but the reverse is not necessarily true.
Everyone, from high school students through to researchers at commercial companies, is welcome to participate within the RoboCupRescue Robot League. Although usually focusing on the larger 120 cm arena, the RoboCupRescue Robot League also includes the 30 cm and 60 cm scale “Mini Arena” for robots that fit at these scales. All robots at these scales compete together and everyone who competes does so for a common set of Major awards and trophies.
RMRC is a bracket of teams within the RoboCupRescue Robot League, separated from the broader competition by an age limit, that focuses on the 30 cm and 60 cm arenas (although robots that are capable of tackling the challenges of the 120 cm arena may also do so) and encourages teams of Junior students to compete for their own Junior award, but still operating alongside teams of older and more advanced students. RMRC is open to all teams from high schools, high school-university partnerships and university outreach groups, makerspaces, community groups, and even just groups of friends, that satisfy the following requirements.
- Up to 6 team members, all of whom satisfy the RoboCup Federation’s age requirement for Junior teams.
- Up to 1 mentor (for teams of 1-3 team members) or 2 mentors (for teams of 4-6 team members). There is no age restriction on mentors.
Note that RMRC is slightly different from other RoboCup Junior competitions in that the mentors are allowed to also participate in the building and maintaining of the robot. We encourage teams that have a mix of high school and university students, where the university students who don’t satisfy the age requirement become the mentors. We do have the requirement that every team member has a working understanding of the robot as a whole and in-depth understanding of their area of contribution to the team, and that the robot is driven in competition by a team member (and not a mentor).
Rules:
We are currently in the process of updating the rules and roster of tests, and reformatting the rules document. Please do get in touch with us over at the forum and mailing list to offer your comments and suggestions!
We hope to publish the updated rules soon! In the meantime, see the RMRC 2019 rules page to get an introduction or refresher on how the competition works.
Timeline:
- Friday 17th of February 2023: Team Participation Form (TPF) due.
- If you are unable to access Google forms, please instead send email to info@rrl-rmrc.org with the following information.
- Your team contact email address.
- Name of primary contact person.
- Team name.
- Organisation name.
- Country.
- Name of backup contact person and email address (optional).
- Estimated number of students (1-6)
- Estimated number of mentors (1-2)
- Acknowledge that the preliminary rules may be updated and to watch for updates, and participate in discussions on the mailing list at https://list.rrl-rmrc.org .
- Acknowledge that RoboCup itself has its own rules and regulations that may be found at https://2023.robocup.org and updated from time to time.
- If you are unable to access Google forms, please instead send email to info@rrl-rmrc.org with the following information.
- Friday 17th of March 2023: Qualification Team Description Materials (TDM) due.
- Friday 14th of April 2023: Notification of Qualification.
- Tuesday 20th of June 2023: Updated TDM due.
- Tuesday 4th of July 2023: RoboCup starts in Bordeaux!
NOTE: This is just the list of RMRC-specific timelines. Teams must also fulfill the general requirements to participate in RoboCup 2023, which will be made available at the official RoboCup 2023 website . In particular please pay close attention to deadlines for hotel bookings, event registration, and payment, especially if visa letters are required for travel to Bordeaux.
Summary of Qualification Documents:
- The Team Participation Form (TPF) requests some basic information about your team – contact details, where you’re coming from, how many people you plan on bringing, and so-on, to allow us to plan.
- It is non-binding as we recognize that not all teams will have made the decision to compete by the time this is due so please fill it in even if you’re not sure if you will be able to join us.
- We *may* accept teams who do not provide us with the TPF if we end up having space but this is not guaranteed and notification of acceptance may be delayed.
- The Qualification Team Description Materials (Qualification TDM) is the basis on which we select teams to qualify for the in-person competition.
- This is equivalent to the Team Description Paper (TDP) in the Major competition, except that we are more flexible and, in addition to traditional research paper format, will also accept submissions in the form of a set of blog posts or a video presentation.
- It should be sent to the public mailing list by the deadline above.
- The materials must cover the following points under suitably obvious headings (we won’t go searching through a mass of blog posts for this info!).
- Logistical info
- Team Name
- Organisation
- Country
- Contact person
- Team website (if present)
- Introduction summarising:
- The team.
- The technical aspects that it focuses on.
- System description, describing:
- Hardware.
- Software.
- Communications.
- Human-robot interface.
- Application, describing:
- Setup and packup of your robot and operator station.
- Mission strategy.
- Experiments and testing that you have done or will do.
- How the particular strengths of your team are relevant to applications in the field.
- Conclusion, summarising:
- What your team has learned so far.
- What you plan on doing between now and the competition.
- Appendix containing:
- One table per robot outlining the components and estimated cost of your robot.
- At least one picture, 3D rendering or technical drawing of your robot.
- Be sure to highlight particular features of your robot.
- A list of software packages, hardware and electronic components that you have used, or plan to use, particularly those from the Open Source community, through the Open Academic Robot Kit or otherwise.
- A list of software packages, hardware and electronic components and designs that you have, or plan to, contribute to the Open Source community, through the Open Academic Robot Kit or otherwise.
- Note that you will still need to actually open source your components in the days prior to the competition as we assume you will continue development between the submission of the TDM and the competition!
- References (to other work that you have made use of).
- Logistical info
- Again we recognize that not all teams may have decided to participate by the deadline so we *may* accept teams who provide their Qualification TDM after the deadline if we end up having space, but this is not guaranteed and notification of acceptance may be delayed. More details coming shortly!
- The Updated Team Description Materials (Updated TDM) is, as the name suggests, an updated version of the Qualification TDM and is used to decide on the teams’ multiplier for the preliminary rounds of the competition.
- The Updated TDM is scored on the sole criteria of how well it helps another team learn about something important that your team has achieved in the course of preparing your entry into the competition. Examples we have had in the past include tutorials on inverse kinematics, full build instructions for the robot chassis and arm, guides on setting up embedded computers with software to be competition ready, and so-on.
- It should be sent to the public mailing list by the deadline above.
- This document must be open sourced and made freely available, in downloadable form at least 2 weeks prior to the competition.
- No extensions will be granted.