We all do not know how Corona is challenging our robotic enthusiasm in 2021
and I appreciate the Soccer Simulation Competition as one way to deal with this.
For my teams the physical robot itself stays the main part of the robocup,
so they still rather work on a robot than on a simulation - program.
So we would like to know where we are heading for:
Is there a “real” competition planned for 2021 ?
The robocop 2021 in Bordeaux is still announced, but if it is going to take place, how would we qualify for this? What about the European robocup in Portugal?
what about the rules?
For open we have some changes.
The field and the goals have been changed for 2020, so I guess, this will stay for a while,
but what about the size an weight? Will we stick to the timetable and have 18cm robots in 2022?
Or even in 2021 as planned at the first place?
Will we try to use the existing robots at least once or do we use the gap to build a complete new one?
Probably straight for a golf ball? Not having unlimited resources it would be great to have a long term plan as building a robot is slower under corona conditions.
Nevertheless I think it is most important do BUILD a robot with hands and the parents of my students see this as one of the biggest benefits of my robotic course for their nerd kids to move away from the screen and talk and works as a team in real life.
Please excuse my late response – definitive infromation has been tough to go by in the past few weeks/months.
As Peter Stone, the President of the RoboCup Federation announced yesterday, the 2021 RoboCup will be fully virtual – the website has been updated to reflect that.
I do not have any further information about the European event but I suspect it will be met with similar fate.
These are all very good questions. At this point I only have my personal opinion, which would be as follows:
It would be great to stick to the original timetable and have 18cm robots in 2022 but I can also see why some would be opposed to such a move, which leads me to the next point
Very few regiona/super-regional competitions where the concept could be tested make this a rather risky move
Same with the golf ball, as it currently stands, there is no specific “official” model or distributor. Moving to golf ball without having it figured out would be quite risky.
That all said, I very much agree that encouraging (where appropriate and always with safety in mind) the physical activity of actually building robots is easily the second best thing we can do after having some “virtual” alternative figured out as well.
Our (the TC and OC) focus is currently on the Demo Competition but once that finishes, we’ll focus on figuring out the answers to the questions above. Whenever we arrive at some agreement, we’ll try to update the forum as well.
As always, please feel free to reply with any feedback/updates/clarifications on what I may have missed.