Here are the registration and qualification details for this year’s RoboCupRescue Robot League – Rapidly Manufactured Robot Challenge!
This is based on last year’s qualification process with significant changes in italics.
Important dates:
- Sunday 11 February 2018, 11.59pm, GMT-12, Submission of your Team Participation Form (TPF).
- Teams that miss this deadline but otherwise qualify may still be invited to participate if we have space.
- Teams that miss this deadline but otherwise qualify may still be invited to participate if we have space.
- Sunday 18 March 2018, 11.59pm, GMT-12, Submission of your Team Description Materials (TDM).
- Monday 2 April, 2018, Announcement of Qualified Teams.
- Sunday 17 – Friday 22 June, 2018, RoboCup in Montreal, Canada!
Summary of the Rules and Qualification Process:
The RoboCupRescue Robot League – Rapidly Manufactured Robot Competition encourages participation by interested organisations from around the world, but limits participation to one team per organisation. The World Championship includes a maximum of 5 teams from each region. Some qualifications for the World Championship may be granted by the League Committee to include particular countries in the league, encourage technologies that the league should be investigating, or to support other league outreach efforts.
Teams placing first, second and third in last year’s World Championship are granted an automatic qualification into the next year, on the condition that they submit an updated TDP that describes their winning entry in a way that is helpful to other teams wishing to learn how to improve their systems.
This year, the competition will be open to teams with team members consisting of high school and undergraduate students from 12 to 19 years of age inclusive. The competition rules will be based on the rules of 2016 competition, which are available from here .
Note about radios: Please use 802.11a/c transmissions around 5.8GHz ONLY. We do not guarantee that a free 802.11b/g/n channel at 2.4GHz will be available. Do not bring equipment that transmits at any other frequency or protocol, such as 5.8GHz video senders that are not based on 802.11a/c, or 2.4GHz RC units such as “Spektrum” equipment. We also recommend all teams bring an option of running with a wire tether, at least 20m is suggested.
Mentors of any age may join the team and guide the students. It should be clear during the course of the competition that the team members are the ones working on the robots, driving them, repairing them and so-on. It should be clear that the mentors are acting in an advisory and demonstration role. In the team paddock, each team is allowed either 2 mentors or, if space allows, half as many mentors as students, whichever is greater.
Teams should first submit a TPF to tell us that they’re interested and how many people they will be bringing. We need this information to plan. If a team does not submit a TPF by the due date, they will only be admitted if they would otherwise qualify and we have enough space.
Teams should then submit the TDM by the due date to tell us what they have done and propose to do. Teams that participated in previous years should include a short description of what they did last year and what they have changed in the meantime. This information is used to rank the teams from each region for selection.
NEW REQUIREMENT TO MAINTAIN QUALIFICATION:
Teams that qualify must send regular updates to the mailing list, http://list.oarkit.org/, between notification of qualification and the competition. The details of these updates will be made available shortly but they are expected to include basic information about what the state of their team and robot is, challenges that are being solved and so-on. At the very least we expect 3 updates (one per month) by mid-April, mid-May and before the competition in mid-June. Ideally teams should maintain a blog of their progress, see the blog for SFX Rescue, the 2017 winners of the Open Source and Innovation award, for an example.
Eligibility for Awards:
Any team that qualifies may compete and demonstrate what they can do with any platform, including commercial, proprietary platforms and those built by others (although during the competition itself, it should be clear that driving, troubleshooting and maintenance must be performed by the students and, when questioned, they should be fully aware of the design and procurement choices that went into the robot).
However, in order for a team to be eligible to win *any* award, teams must only use hardware, electronics and software components that are either easily purchasable by other teams (eg. Dynamixel servos) and/or are open source. In particular, prior to the end of the second day of competition (ie. the 21st of June), but ideally well ahead of the competition itself, teams must show that all of the hardware, electronics and software components that they have developed themselves has been documented and publicly released, under an open source license, such that next year, other teams may build on their work. Details on how to submit this information will be made public on the OARKit mailing list ( http://list.oarkit.org ) in the coming months.
There is also an award for the team with the most Open Source Impact. This award, to be decided by the RoboCupRescue Robot League – Rapidly Manufactured Robot Challenge Committee, will be awarded to the team whose open source contributions have made the most impact on the competitors in particular, and the Open Academic Robot Kit community more generally. Documenting your work well, releasing it in a timely fashion and disseminating widely will give you a nice head start for this award!
Team Participation Form:
There is no fixed document for the TPF. Instead, please send an email to info@oarkit.org with “RoboCupRescue RMRC 2018 TPF <TeamName>” as the subject (replace <TeamName> with the name of your team) and in it, answer the following questions. We recommend copying and pasting the following lines into an email and filling your answers in underneath. Note that this information (apart from contact information) may be released publicly.
- Team Name
- Organisation
- Country
- Contact person
- Telephone number
- Estimated number of students
- Estimated number of mentors
- Estimated number of robots
Team Description Materials:
The TDM closely mirrors the goal of the Team Description Paper (TDP) from the Major competition, in a form that allows greater flexibility so that it is easier for high school and early undergraduate students to take part. Teams may submit their materials in the form of a traditional TDP which follows the Major format (available from http://wiki.robocup.org/Robot_League#RoboCup_2017_Information ) or may submit a print-to-PDF version of a website or series of blog posts that contains the same information. We also encourage teams to submit links to videos (available by direct download) showing the state of their robots thus far, ideally within the small scale standard test method apparatuses. See http://comp.oarkit.org for plans of the 2017 arena and its test methods. As per the TPF, lease send your TDM in an email to info@oarkit.org with “RoboCupRescue RMRC 2018 TDM <TeamName>” as the subject (replace <TeamName> with the name of your team)
The TDM should have the following information. We realise that your robot will change between submitting these materials and the competition so for any information that you do not yet know, propose what you would like to do or use and why. Note that this information will be released publicly.
- 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).
Further Details:
This is a new competition, with several features that are rather unique. Therefore, we’re sure that you have many questions and requests for clarification, judgement calls and interpretations. We welcome these and would very much rather you ask early than to feel uncertain about how a rule may affect you. Please post them to the list ( http://list.oarkit.org ) and we will answer them for everyone.
Similarly, the rules and criteria for qualifications and awards will be clarified and amended as, with your help, we find ways to improve them. Any clarifications and amendments will be posted to this list and on the website at http://comp.oarkit.org . As always, once the competition is underway, rulings and interpretations at team leader meetings will take precedence.
We look forward to hearing from you and seeing you in Montreal!
Raymond Sheh, Amy Eguchi, Gerard Elias and Phil Wade.
Your RoboCupRescue Robot League – Rapidly Manufactured Robot Challenge committee.
Last update 2018-02-12: Added format of email subject to TDM specification.
Last update 2018-01-16: Switched wording from “high school” to “junior (12-19 years of age inclusive)”.
Last substantial update 2017-12-31