With another 36 matches of the SR2021 Competition, team HRS3 from Hills Road Sixth Form College head up the league leaderboard, though a number of other teams are hot on their heels. This weekend’s matches saw great performances from our teams, including three new teams which hadn’t submitted a robot for the first league session.

Module Ⅱ provided a new challenge to the teams, both through opening up the arena half way through the match and by requiring that territories be linked back to a teams starting zone to be captured. The latter in particular created some tense moments during the matches, with robots able to dramatically affect each others’ scores by severing territory chains.

At the end of the league we announced to teams the details of our third game module. This changes the way that a robot’s score is calculated from being the largest extent of their territory during the match to being purely based on the territory they control at the end of the match. Additionally the territories will now become locked (and unclaimed) after they have been successfully claimed four times.

This module of the game requires that the teams robots further increase their awareness of their environment and how they react to it if they want to claim territories and also hold them for the duration of the match

We’re now at the half-way point in the league matches that will seed the eventual knockout stage, so teams still have everything to play for. The next league session will be in 6 weeks, on the 20th March.

If you would like to catch up on any of the matches so far, our livestreams are available on YouTube:

• League Session 2
• League Session 1

We look forward to seeing you over the coming months for the continuation of the SR2021 Competition.

After the first 36 matches of the SR2021 Competition, team HRS3 from Hills Road Sixth Form College head up the initial league leaderboard with a staggering 82 game points. They’re closely followed by the other 3 Hills Road teams as well as one of our rookie teams We Robots.

The league matches provide a proving ground for all the teams’ hard work over the past few months in preparing their robot code. There is also a prize for the rookie team which scores the best in the league, which both the We Robots team and Harris Westminster Sixth Form Team 1 are currently well placed for.

At the end of the league we announced to teams the details of our second game module. This sees the territories, that teams must claim to gain points, have ‘links’ added between them. Coupled with a new restriction that prevents robots claiming territories unless they can form a chain back to their starting zone, this makes for an interesting problem for teams to solve.

The teams now have three weeks to work on and improve their code before another 36 league matches are played over the course of next league schedule. Given this is only our first league session there is still everything to play for.

If you would like to catch up on this weekend’s livestreamed matches, they’re available on YouTube:

• League Session 1

We look forward to seeing you over the coming months for the continuation of the SR2021 Competition.

Student Robotics 2021 was Kickstarted today on our livestream. Peaking at just over a hundred concurrent viewers we welcomed teams from around the world, and it was great to see the competitors get familiar with the simulator.

Our game this year, Radars of the Lost Ark, challenges teams to score points by claiming territories using radios. Teams must navigate the arena scanning for tower transmissions and sending their own transmissions back to claim territories. Teams are awarded points at the end of the match for the maximum extent of their territory at any one time. Full details, including the prizes available this year, are available in the rulebook.

As this competition year doesn’t feature a physical competition event, the structure of the competition has changed. The league matches will take place on four weekends through the year. After each league session the game will gain additional modules that will present new and different challenges to the competitors. The competition will culminate on May 1st 2021 with a the knockouts and grand final.

This year’s teams have already been strategising their approach, and we can’t wait to see their progress over the year!

If you weren’t able to attend Kickstart this year, or would like a recap, you can:

• watch our livestream where we explain the game and how this year’s competition will work.
• download the presentation in which we explain this year’s game and how the competition is running this year.
• download the microgames which are small activities designed to let you become familiar with the Student Robotics simulator.

We look forward to seeing you at the first league session, in January.