CIRC Circle Touch Rules
The goal of this contest is to negotiate obstacles set up on a table in order to find and touch 1 to 3 circles. The unique challenges to this event are negotiating the obstacles and the touching of the circles.
Layout of area and obstacles: Sample pictures shown below.
- The course is on a 4-foot x 8-foot table with approximately 2-inch walls.
- All obstacles will have a minimum height of 2-inches and be affixed to the table.
- The base or start area can be of any shape, but will most likely be a square.
- There will be a line in the Home Base that can be used to define North for your robot.
- Three flat 6-inch circles will be placed around the table amongst the obstacles. Northerly and Easterly lines will cross in the center of each circle. A line will extend from the circle toward the North.
Setup:
- The base, circles, and obstacle locations will be held constant for all rounds. Their locations will be given to the contestants prior to the competition. The course will use an 8” grid.
- Obstacles will be affixed to the table.
- The circles will be black rings with white centers crossed by black lines with a tab line pointing North. The external circle diameter will be 6 inches.
- The operator can touch the robot when it is in Home Base without penalty.
- When the robot is touched outside of the Home Base, it must be returned to the Home Base.
- The bottom left of the table will be designated as (0, 0).
Robot Requirements:
- There are no size or weight limits for the robot, but the robot should be able to negotiate the obstacles on the course.
- The robot may not be built such that it will damage the course.
- The robot must be autonomous.
- The robot may communicate with a base station of any type located off the robot.
- Neither the robot nor the base station may receive human input during a run.
- Neither the robot nor the base station can use internet access.
- All cameras or sensors must be on the robot.
Scoring:
- A robot touches a circle if any part of it passes over the circle. The tab extending North is not part of the circle.
- Points for touching a circle are as follows. Circle 1 is worth 1 point. Circle 2 is worth 4 points. Circle 3 is worth 9 points.
- Returning to base is worth 2 points. Touching any part of the Home Base outline is considered returned to base.
- Points for touching a particular circle may be earned multiple times during a trial only if the robot autonomously touches Home Base or another circle in between the touching of the particular circle.
- A judge will determine and indicate all circle touches.
- There is no penalty for contacting the walls or obstacles.
Procedure:
- There will be a 30-minute practice period before the contest starts. Contestants are expected to share the arena for practice.
- It is acceptable to run the robot under operator control on the course during the practice time in order for the robot to learn the course.
- The location of obstacles and circles will be given to competitors based on an 8” grid prior to the event.
- The order of competitors will be randomly determined by the judges.
- Each contestant has 3 minutes to score as many points as possible.
- The operator may pick up their robot and return it to base in order to send it out again. No point is scored for the robot returning to base in this manner and there is no penalty.
- All points will be recorded for each robot.
- There cannot be any cues or inputs from any human being directly or indirectly while the robot is running the course.
Sample Layout: Not drawn to scale.
