Giving information about preferred direction of exploration to the robot

Hello everyone,

it is not allowed to pass any information of the maze to the robot:

2.1.1 Robots must be controlled autonomously. The use of a remote control, manual control, or passing information (by sensors, cables, wirelessly, etc.) to the robot is not allowed
3.4.3 Teams are not allowed to give their robot any advance information about the field. A robot is supposed to recognize the field elements by itself.
3.6.3 […] The team is not allowed to change the program, give any information about the field to the robot, or repair the robot.

Assuming the robot explores the maze with a right- or left-hand-rule, is it allowed to tell the robot the preferred direction (either left or right) to explore the maze after analyzing the arena? The rules only say that passing advanced information to the robot is forbidden. Does this count as (advanced) information or is it a strategy?

In my opinion it should not be allowed and count as giving information to the robot. It should not be allowed to pass any information to the robot after the team sees the arena. It should be the same in line. After all it is a rescue scenario. The arena/building is unknown to the robot and it should be capable to find the best and quickest route on it’s own.

Best,
Jan

In my memory, the answer was in the lost forum. I will look for it.
Please wait a few.

Naomi

If it is a human analyzing the maze and setting the preference for left or right hand wall following then it is not allowed.

If the robot while doing a run in the maze determines one is more optimal than the other then it is ok for the robot to do that determination and change its algorith during the run.

An operator is not allowed to look at the maze and inform the robot which algorithm is more optimal.

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Just wanted to add that I just found the answer was also given here:


Was not easy to find due to the naming of the thread :wink: