Calibration doubt

RoboCupJunior Rescue RoboCupJunior Rescue Maze
#1

Hi,

It is allowed to choose the robot’s preference (right or left) during calibration time?

#2

Very interesting!
It is the same question that a group of agonists asked me time ago. I think the rules prohibit to give informations about the field, mapping included. But if you give only the “strategy left or right” to perform the run? Is it considered a violation? If you look at the field and THEN you choose left or right you give an “additional” information to the robot… uhm… the border between allowed or not is subtle… just wait our TC to give us the right interpretations :wink:

Other questions:

  1. if the players give the “strategy” always left or always right BEFORE the calibration time?
  2. is it allowed to give the “strategy” always left or always right DURING a lack of progress without change the software?

Thank you in advice to the TC!

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Giving information about preferred direction of exploration to the robot
#3

Dear all,

This is not allowed. As easy as that :slight_smile:
The reason it is not allowed is because teams may “optimize” their route based on what the maze looks like. If it has more victims to the left or right, and other difficulties the humans can see beforehand. You give the robot information. And all information is forbidden.

But it is almost impossible for us to check. When we read through the code you submit we try to analyse the algorithm and what wall-preferences the robot have. When the robot is running we try to compare to see that it is the same behaviour. But this is not an easy task…

When I was participating in Maze 2010 we did select based on the layout of the maze (but the rules were not as strict as they are today about it).

We try our best to look for this, but we will certainly miss it sometimes. It is up to all teams to participate as fair as they can. And you should not change anything to your program based on what you have seen in the maze. Another solution would be to cover the maze with a ceiling or move it to another room where no audience or participants are allowed before their run.

What is easier for us to detect is if a robot is first following the right wall and after a LoP following the left wall. That is suspicious. And we may reduce their points from that run (or disqualify them from that run).

Do not try to do this, it will only give us in the organization problems :slight_smile:

// Fredrik Löfgren, TC and OC member 2016 / 2017

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