The 2005 competition showcases four different missions each with its own playing field. Each mission makes emphasis on a set of tasks. Teams score points when their robots complete a prescribed set of tasks for each mission under specific time constraints and announce their completion.
Each team will compete in a coalition of two to four teams, each team's robot taking on a single mission. Each coalition will be given 2 minutes to achieve the missions. The score for each mission will be recorded for tie breakers. Each team earns the coalition aggregate score for all its missions.
Coalitions are formed so as to insure that every team will compete with every other team at least once during the final competition. Each coalition will decide the mission that each team will attempt. For coalitions of less than four teams, not all the missions will be in play.
A team's total competition score is the sum of all its coalition scores after its lowest coalition score is dropped. The tie breakers are the highest mission scores.
Each mission can receive partial scores. The robot must announce that it has completed each portion of the mission to receive a score. Announcing can be accomplished with the "waving of the head" using the Pan and Tilt servos. Further, in order to decrease the chance of damaging the servos, the movement of the arm must be limited in speed by at least half of its max speed and a small pause is recommended before reversing the direction of any joint. Too brisk or jerky movements of the servos will result in a penalty.
Individual scoring for each missions:
The dance will consist of several steps made by the robots on a dance floor. The dance floor is laid out by four 1' x 1' step boxes located outside of a 3' X 3' square. The step boxes are labeled Forward, Back, Right, and Left. The audience is located in front of the Forward box. The robot will start out in the Back step box facing the audience with its head facing forward and its arm up.
The dance steps are as follows:
The objective is to reach the top of the tree of life identifying the correct branch to take at every junction. Shortly before reaching each bifurcation there will be a bar code. The width of the bar code will identify the branch to be taken. The wider bar code represents a right branch and the narrower bar code represents a left branch. The robot will travel through two branches before reading the third bar code. Upon reading the third bar code the robot should stop and turn its head in the direction indicated by the third bar code.
The mother ship has a beacon on its side and it hovers directly over the drop location until the pick up is completed. The drop area is marked by the opened white chute which expands in a circular area. The supplies are located on the center of the chute.
The border of the crop circle will be marked with a circular path. A robot will start on this path and is supposed to reach the unmarked center of the circle, stop there, and announce.
Bonuses