Greed

Table of Contents

1. Game Rules
2. Regulations
3. Specifications
4. Competition Structure
5. Challenges
6. Awards
7. Revisions

Game Rules

1. The objective of the game, called Greed, is to capture tokens from your opponents.
2. Before a match begins, participating teams must:
   • Present their robot in the staging area, adjacent to the arena, before the scheduled close of staging time. The staging area will be clearly marked on the day.
   • Attach a robot flag. Robot flags will be provided by Student Robotics officials in the staging area.
   • Place their robot in the starting area that they are assigned. The robot must be placed such that it is entirely within this starting area, with no parts overhanging its boundary. Its orientation does not matter.
   • Vacate the arena 40 seconds before the scheduled start time. During the 40 second period prior to the start of the match there must be no interaction with the robot.
   • Follow the directions of the match officials.
   Teams that fail to comply with these rules – such as by arriving late – may forfeit the match, at the discretion of the judge.
3. The game is played between four robots.
4. Each match lasts for 150 seconds.
5. Robots will be started by, or at the direction of, match officials.
6. There are 20 Bronze tokens, 12 Silver tokens and 4 Gold tokens in the arena at the start of the match.
7. At the end of the match, tokens are nominally worth:
   • Bronze tokens: 3 points,
   • Silver tokens: 12 points,
   • Gold tokens: 30 points.
8. A token is "in" a scoring zone if any of the vertical projection of the token onto the arena floor is within the zone. Tokens "in" a scoring zone award their values to the robot which has been assigned that scoring zone.
9. A token is "in" a robot if the token is lifted when the robot is lifted. Tokens "in" a robot have one third of their value awarded to that robot.
10. Tokens in robots are not in any scoring zone.
11. There is a bonus point available for a robot fully leaving its scoring zone for the first time in a game.
12. Robots start inside the starting area within their scoring zone.
13. At the end of the match the robot with the most points wins.
14. The arena is a square of the design specified in the specifications section.
15. A match may be terminated prematurely if all teams participating in that match state to the match officials that they are happy for the game to end.

Regulations

Regulations marked with an asterisk (*) are open to exemptions; if you need to deviate, apply for an exemption on Discord. Explain why you need the deviation and how you are going to mitigate it.

1. All robots must be safe.
2. The judge's decision is final.
3. Teams must conduct themselves within the principles of good sporting conduct.
4. Any assistance from Student Robotics volunteers is provided without guarantees.
5. No remote control systems or radio transmitters or receivers are permitted. (*)
6. While accidental bumps and scrapes are inevitable, the sport is non-contact.
7. Robots must pass a safety inspection before they can enter a physical arena.
8. Robots must not deliberately or negligently damage the arena or anything in it.
9. Robots must have a mass of less than 10kg. (*)
10. Robots must not intentionally damage anything – including tokens, the central plinth, the arena or other robots. At the discretion of the judge, teams who deliberately engage in collisions or take insufficient precautions against collisions may be penalised, including disqualification from rounds and deduction of league points.
11. Robots must fit within a 500mm ✖️ 500mm ✖️ 500mm cube at the start of each match.
12. Robots must fit within a 500mm ✖️ 750mm ✖️ 750mm cube, with one 750mm axis vertical, at all times during each match.
13. Robots must not deliberately drop any part of themselves onto the arena. (*)
14. Robots must have all electronics securely mounted and easily removable. (*)
15. Robots must provide adequate protection to the batteries they use, including protection from mechanical damage.
16. All black wires on each robot must be ground (0V) and all ground wires on each robot must be black. (*)
17. Only Student Robotics' provided batteries may be used, and only through the Student Robotics power board or charger. (*)
18. Robots must not have any devices designed to produce noise except where included in the Student Robotics kit. (*)
19. Robots must not have any fiducial markers visible to other robots. (*)
20. Robots must have a spare USB slot accessible to match officials. (*)
21. Robots must have a power switch, obvious and on top, which will completely immobilise the robot.
22. Robots must not have any sharp edges or points. (*)
23. Robots must not use any operating voltage higher than 36V or lower than ground. (*)
24. All Student Robotics kit remains the property of Student Robotics.
25. Robots must have a flag mounting. (*)

Violations of these regulations will result in penalties, including deductions of points or outright disqualification.

Specifications

Markers

The arena is labelled with fiducial markers. Each marker pattern encodes a number. Each marker number is associated with a particular feature within the arena, and also has an associated size.

Item	Marker Numbers	Marker Size (mm)
Arena boundary	0 - 27	200
Token marker	73	80

Two sets of marker codes will be used: one for development purposes, and one for the competition itself. The competition set is only to be used inside the Student Robotics arena at the Student Robotics competition. This is so that people carrying markers past the arena do not confuse robots. The competition codes are 100 above the development codes. When run in competition mode, the software provided by Student Robotics will subtract 100 from the detected marker codes, as well as ignore the development codes. Markers outside of the ranges used in the game will also be ignored.

The markers can be printed on a black-and-white printer.

Twenty eight arena wall markers are positioned around the perimeter of the arena with the marker codes incrementing in a clockwise fashion. The corners are counted in a clockwise fashion, with corner 0 being the corner closest to arena marker 0.

Arena

1. The above figure represents, to scale, a birds eye view of the arena. The arena is 5.75m square.
2. The floor of the arena is covered with a closed-loop, short pile carpet.
3. The perimeter of the arena floor is delimited by the arena wall, which has a minimum height of 100mm.
4. Each wall of the arena features seven 200mm AprilTag markers.
5. Each robot will be assigned a corner at the start of every match to indicate its scoring zone.
6. Starting areas are 1000 ±50mm squares within their respective scoring zones and will be marked by tape.
7. The green boxes denote the robot start locations. Robots may start facing any direction.
8. In the centre of the arena is a square plinth with cruciform arms extending from the centre of each side. The plinth is 75 ±20mm high. The square centre of the plinth has side length 600 ±50mm. The arms of the plinth are 2000 ±50mm long and 50 ±20mm wide.
9. The top and sides of the plinth will be solid.
10. Student Robotics reserves the right to have match officials in the arena during games.

Scoring Zones

1. The arena is equally divided in to four square scoring zones, each with side length 2875mm ±100mm.
2. The boundary between scoring zones will be marked by 48mm coloured tape. For scoring purposes the tape is considered "in" both zones that it separates.

Robot flags

1. A "robot flag" is a removable identifier that will be attached to a robot throughout a match. It features identifying areas to allow spectators to easily associate a robot with its starting area. The markings in the identifying areas are intentionally not specified.
2. Flags are not counted when considering the starting size of the robot.
3. The identifying part of the robot flag must be visible when attached to the mount.
4. The mounting cylinder must be permanently affixed to the main chassis of a robot, and vertical when the robot is in its typical stopped position.

Tokens

1. Tokens are "single wall" cuboid cardboard boxes.
2. Bronze and Silver tokens have side lengths of 130 ±10mm.
3. Gold tokens have side lengths of 255 ±25mm.
4. Bronze tokens have a mass of 80 ±40g.
5. Silver tokens are weighted such that their mass is 300 ±50g more than Bronze tokens. The centre of mass of Silver tokens will not match their centre of volume.
6. Tokens will be arranged as shown in the arena specification.
7. Tokens will have an 80mm AprilTag marker in the centre of each face. The number of this marker will be the same for all tokens in the arena.

Competition Structure

The competition is structured in four phases: the challenges, the virtual league, the main league and the knockout.

Challenges

1. There are three challenges which teams may optionally complete during the competition year in order to earn additional league points. The challenges may be approached in any order.
2. Teams which complete one of the challenges by 8pm GMT on January 7^th 2023 will earn 8 league points.
3. Teams which complete a different challenge by 8pm GMT on February 4^th 2023 will earn a separate 8 league points.
4. Submissions for each challenge should be made as a video on the web (e.g: on YouTube, Instagram, etc.) and linking this video in the Student Robotics Discord, tagged with @Challenges.
5. The challenges are specified in the challenges section.

Virtual League

1. There will be a livestreamed virtual league one month before the in-person competition.
2. The virtual league will use the Webots based simulator.
3. During the virtual league, each robot will have four match appearances.
4. The livestream will be on a Saturday afternoon. The date will be confirmed when the date of the competition is confirmed.
5. Code submissions will close at 8pm GMT on the Friday before the virtual league.
6. The matches played during the virtual league constitute the first matches of the league. As such, you will be awarded league points as outlined below.

Matches

1. The main league and the knockout will be played at the in-person competition event.
2. At the end of a game, league points will be awarded as follows. The team with the most game points will be awarded 8 points towards the competition league. The team with the second most will be awarded 6. The team with the third most will be awarded 4 points, and the team with the fewest game points will be awarded 2 points. Teams whose robot was not entered into the round, or who were disqualified from the round, will be awarded no points.
3. Tied robots will be awarded the average of the points that their combined positions would be awarded. Thus, three robots tied for first place would receive 6 points each (since this is (8 + 6 + 4) ÷ 3).
4. At the end of the leagues, positions in the leagues are used to seed a knockout. This will be used to determine the final 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd awards.
5. In the event of a tie in a knockout match, the team that ranked highest in the league will go through.

Challenges

Throughout these challenges a "robot" need not be fully constructed, nor is it limited by the size limits which would apply in the competition arena. Robots may use whatever sensing mechanisms they like, as long as those mechanisms would be permitted in the competition arena.

However robots must be safe (as specified in the regulations) when completing these challenges.

Movement Challenge

1. Autonomously complete 3 continuous circuits of a triangular path, returning to its starting position to within 300mm.
2. The path must be a isosceles right-angled triangle with shorter side length 1500 ±200mm.
3. The direction of travel around the triangle and orientation of the robot are inconsequential.

Sensor Challenge

1. Autonomously differentiate between any two of the three token types.
2. Indicate, using the LEDs on the Brain Board, they have detected:
   • the less valuable token by illuminating LED A and
   • the more valuable token by illuminating LED C.
3. The tokens may be placed manually into or onto the robot if desired.

Vision Challenge

1. Demonstrate, using the LEDs on the Brain Board, awareness of its position relative to three arena wall markers.
2. Facing the wall at a point 1m out from the wall and directly in front of the middle of the three markers, turn on the spot illuminating LEDs to indicate the orientation of the robot:
   • LED A in blue when more than 30° left from square on,
   • LED B in blue in the middle (60° arc) and
   • LED C in blue when more than 30° right from square on.
3. Facing the wall at a point 1m out from the wall and directly in front of the middle of the three markers, move left and right illuminating LEDs to indicate the position of the robot relative to a line through the middle marker and orthogonal to the wall:
   • LED A in red when more than 200mm left of the line
   • LED B in blue within 200mm of the line
   • LED C in red when more than 200mm right of the line
4. The robot may move autonomously or may be moved manually to complete this challenge.
   Note: if moving the robot manually then the Ruggeduino, Motor and Servo Boards must be disconnected from the Power Board as well as any mechanical components secured for the duration of the demonstration.

Awards

Main Competition Awards

Awarded to the teams that place highest in the knockout at the end of the competition. The teams in 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd place receive awards.

Rookie Award

Awarded to the team, competing in Student Robotics for the first time, which places highest in the league.

Committee Award

Awarded to the team that displays the most extraordinary ingenuity in the design of their robot. It is not awarded for complexity of design, but rather elegance, simplicity, and good engineering.

Online Presence

The team that judged to have the best online presence will receive an edible prize at the final competition. The hashtag for the competition is #srobo2023. Teams are reminded not to post private information about their members or others.

Challenges

The first team to complete all three challenges will receive an edible prize at the final competition.

Robot and Team Image

The team that presents their robot and themselves in what is judged to be the most outstanding way will receive an edible prize at the final competition.

Revisions

From time to time Student Robotics may amend the rulebook. When this happens, this document will be updated.

1. Clarify that the online presence award is edible (enacted 2022-10-22)
2. Clarify units on the arena sidewall diagram (enacted 2022-10-22)
3. Clarify the assignment of points from scoring zones and from tokens in robots (enacted 2022-10-27)
4. Change the size of the markers and Bronze & Silver tokens to ensure there is enough space on the tokens for the markers (enacted 2022-11-16)
5. Specify the mass of Bronze tokens (enacted 2022-12-14)
6. Specify one specific marker for the tokens (enacted 2023-02-01)