SRS Robo-Magellan

To compete at Robothon, on June 2, Jigsaw is building a self-driving (RC) car (http://blog.davidsingleton.org/nnrccar) and you can too. Join our team or become a mentor. Please help spread the words.

We are meeting at Jigsaw (Thursday evening and also during SCRoW: Soldering Coding and Robotics on Wednesday at 7pm).

Project Lead: Shubham Shukla

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More info:
SRS Robo-Magellan
http://www.robothon.org/robothon/robo-magellan.php
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Object

Robo-Magellan is a robotics competition emphasizing autonomous navigation and obstacle avoidance over varied, outdoor terrain. Robots have three opportunities to navigate from a starting point to an ending point and are scored on time required to complete the course with opportunities to lower the score based on contacting intermediate points.

Usage

Other clubs and non-commercial organizations may use these rules and the name "SRS Robo-Magellan" provided:

The SRS is notified of any upcoming contests.
The rules are not changed.
The SRS is credited (using the full name SRS Robo-Magellan is sufficient).
It is the intent of the SRS to keep these rules fresh as robot capabilities progress. Changes will be announced once per year, shortly after the SRS Robothon.

Questions or comments about these rules should be directed to contests or the Seattle Robotics Yahoo Group .

The latest version of these rules is posted at .

Robot

The robot must not be constructed in such a way as to damage the environment or other robots. See "Safety" for other restrictions. No robot may weigh more than 50 pounds nor may it use an internal or external combustion engine. The robot must fit inside a 4' x 4' x 4' cube for the entire duration of its run.

Robots must be autonomous. Remote control is not allowed, with the exception of the remote control safety switch.

Course

The course will be outdoors with both natural and manmade terrain and obstacles. The terrain may include pavement, dirt, small rocks, grass, hills, gullies, trees, curbs and weeds. This list is not exhaustive. The robot will not need to traverse a water obstacle to complete the course although weather conditions may make some surfaces wet and/or soggy. The contest will not necessarily be postponed in the event of inclement weather.

Robots will be placed at a designated starting point prior to each run. The destination and bonus waypoints will be designated with latitude/longitude coordinates and marked by 18", orange, plastic traffic cones. Waypoints will be specified as degrees and minutes with minutes carried out to four positions right of the decimal point (N 47 22.1245 W 122 32.0493). The datum is WGS84.

The total straight-line distance between the start and destination will be less than 1,000 feet however the shortest route may be longer due to obstacles. The route taken from start to destination, including bonus waypoints, may be significantly longer than 1,000 feet.

Play

The latitude and longitude of the start, destination and bonus waypoints will be announced at the start of the contest along with other considerations such as safety matters and course boundaries. Mandatory bonus waypoints and order, if any, will also be announced. The number of mandatory waypoints, whether or not there will be a specific order, etc. will not normally be announced in advance of the actual contest. Contestants will then have 30 minutes to make software and hardware modifications to their robots. At the end of 30 minutes, a judge will signal the start of the race. Each robot will be given three chances to complete the course and 30 minutes will be provided between attempts for software and hardware modifications.

During the initial 30 minutes between the announcement of the course and the start of the contest, contestants will be able to walk the course to take measurements. Acceptable measuring instruments include a hand-held GPS, tape measure, wheeled measuring device, etc. However, the actual robot will not be allowed on the course. Please see Intended Rule Evolution in the appendix for more information.

Judges will determine the maximum number of robots that can run at once. If more than one robot will be run simultaneously, judges will stagger the start times to minimize the chances of robots interfering with each other. Judges will also designate the order in which robots will start. Consideration will be given to robot speed, intended route, safety features and other factors when determining the starting lineup.

Each robot will work their way toward the destination waypoint following the course its operator deems appropriate. Boundaries will be set and, if a robot crosses a boundary, it will be immediately stopped and no score will be awarded for that attempt.

Robots must touch bonus waypoint cones (but not move them or knock them over) to score bonus points. Robots must touch the destination waypoint and stop in order to complete the course. Robots that do not complete the course will receive no score for that round (see exception under Scoring). Other than GPS, robots cannot use external beacons or markers as navigation aids, nor can robots employ devices like differential GPS to boost the accuracy or reception of GPS signals.

Each robot is given 15 minutes to complete the course on each of its three attempts. Each attempt is scored individually. After three attempts, the best (lowest) score for each robot will be recorded as that robot's final score. Thirty minutes will be given between attempts to allow for software and hardware modifications.

Robots do not need to travel the same route for each attempt. Contestants may try alternate routes in an effort to improve their score or chances of finishing.

Scoring

Basically, robots will receive a score corresponding to the number of seconds needed to travel to the destination and any bonus waypoints. The robot with the lowest score on any individual run will win.

Bonus waypoints are assigned multipliers (between 0.1 and 0.9) prior to the start of the competition and will reflect the difficulty of the terrain, distance from the start/destination and any other factors the judges consider relevant. The judge may specify one or more bonus waypoints as mandatory waypoints. Robots must navigate to and touch all mandatory bonus waypoints prior to navigating to the final destination. The judge may optionally specify a particular order for bonus waypoints. If an order is specified, robots must travel to bonus waypoints in the correct order prior to navigating to the final destination.

A robot must physically touch the orange traffic cone marking a bonus waypoint to receive a scoring multiplier. If a bonus cone is moved or knocked over, no bonus will be awarded for that cone. The robot may "tip" a cone and still receive a bonus as long as the cone doesn't move from its previous position or fall over. If a robot successfully navigates to more than one bonus waypoint, all applicable bonus multipliers will be applied. For example, if a robot requires 500 seconds to complete the course and visits two bonus waypoints with multipliers of 0.5 and 0.1, the final score for that attempt will be 500 x 0.5 x 0.1 = 25.

If a robot does not finish, it will receive a score indicating the distance remaining to the target cone, along the shortest practical path to the destination (not necessarily a straight line between the robot and the destination cone), taking into consideration mandatory waypoints as applicable. Robots that complete the course at least once will always place higher than robots that do not complete the course. If no robots complete the course, the robot that came closest to the destination cone (while considering any mandatory bonus waypoints) will be declared the winner.

If the course has mandatory bonus waypoints that must be touched in a particular order, the distance to the final cone will be measured from the robot's final position to the next untouched bonus waypoint, any subsequent bonus waypoints (in order), then the final destination. If waypoints are reached in some order other than that specified, any cone that was touched out of order will not be counted for a bonus or as a place along the course to the final destination. more...