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RoboCup Brazil Open 2023
by Patricia Vergara 29 Jun '23

29 Jun '23

Good morning! Registrations are now open for RoboCup Brazil Open 2023! The event will occur from October 7th to 12th at the* Salvador Convention Center in Salvador, Bahia*. Registrations can be made through the website: http://olimpo.robocup.org.br/. RoboCup Brazil Open is a large event that also includes the Brazilian Robotics Competition, the Brazilian Robotics Olympiad, and the Brazilian Robotics Exhibition. In addition, the following meetings will be held during the event: XV Brazilian Robotics Symposium XIV Workshop on Educational Robotics Thesis and Dissertation Workshop in Robotics Thesis and Dissertation Contest in Robotics IEEE Latin American Robotics Symposium All rules and challenges for each category are available on our website, as well as the updated registration fees and deadlines for TDP submission. >> Some categories will be in a hybrid format, allowing teams to participate remotely when necessary. >> All information is available on our website: www.cbrobotica.org and www.robotica.org.br ________________________________ Best regards, Robocup Brazil Team -- Patrícia Vergara Comunicação RoboCup Brasil (11) 9.8686-4993 (apenas whatsapp) www.robocup.org.br

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National Robotics Festival - Portugal
by Patricia Vergara 29 Mar '23

29 Mar '23

Hello good morning: We are almost ready for the 23rd edition of the National Robotics Festival - Portugal - FNR’2023 event. We are pleased to address this invitation to invite you to participate in the 2023 Portuguese Robotics Open (FNR'2023) which is promoted by the Polytechnic Institute of Tomar (IPT) and the Portuguese Robotics Society (SPR) and which will take place at the Municipal Pavilion of Tomar, from April 28 to 30, 2023. Categories: Major: DRAGSTAR FREEBOTS MANIPULADORES ROBÓTICOS ROBOT@FACTORY LITE ROBOT@FACTORY 4.0 CONDUÇÃO AUTÓNOMA LIGA DE SIMULAÇÃO 3D @HOME Junior: RCJ RESCUE SIMULATION ROBOT@FACTORY LITE FIRST CHALLENGER FREEBOTS JÚNIOR ONSTAGE BUSCA E SALVAMENTO – LINHA BUSCA E SALVAMENTO – LABIRINTO ROBOCUP SOCCER (MSL) The registration form is now available on the event's website! If you register before April 2nd, in addition to guaranteeing your spot, you are entitled to a discount on your team's registration. Click the button below for more details and access to our website! https://www.festivalnacionalrobotica.pt/2023/ If you have any questions, you can contact the organization through the official email: info(a)festivalnacionalrobotica.pt We look forward to your participation and present our best regards, The Organizing Committee -- Patrícia Vergara

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Fw: Fall 2023 fully-funded Ph.D. positions in human-robot interaction (HRI) at the University of South Florida (USF), Tampa, FL, USA
by Zhao Han 21 Mar '23

21 Mar '23

Joining the University of South Florida<https://www.usf.edu/> (USF) in August, Dr. Zhao Han<https://zhaohanphd.com/> invites applications for up to two fully funded Ph.D. positions (Research Assistants) starting as early as Fall 2023 in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering Ph.D. program<https://www.usf.edu/engineering/cse/graduate/phd-program.aspx> (catalog<https://catalog.usf.edu/preview_program.php?catoid=18&poid=7770>) at USF in Tampa, Florida, USA. The deadline for Fall 2023 admission is April 15. This posting is also available at https://zhaohanphd.com/phd-positions/. Strong candidates are highly motivated, comfortable with programming, eager to learn, hard-working, and demonstrate an interest in the emerging and interdisciplinary field of human-robot interaction (HRI), including robot explanation/transparency, augmented reality/virtual reality (AR/VR), collaborative mobile manipulation/robotics, robot platform and interaction design, AI, cognitive science/psychology, or an area related to Dr. Han’s expertise<https://zhaohanphd.com/expertise/>. Successful candidates will be mentored and trained as prolific and independent researchers, publishing at top-tier international conferences and journals. Dr. Han has a strong publication record<https://zhaohanphd.com/publications/> and extensive mentoring experience<https://zhaohanphd.com/cv/#mentoring> with an inclusive excellence and supportive approach. You will work on real robot platforms using popular robotics frameworks. Students from underrepresented and underserved groups that are traditionally disadvantaged are strongly encouraged to apply. This position includes tuition waivers and stipends. ________________________________ Dr. Zhao Han is an incoming Assistant Professor in the Computer Science and Engineering department at the University of South Florida, joining the faculty in August 2023. He is currently a Post-Doctoral Fellow at Colorado School of Mines. His research lies broadly in human-robot interaction (HRI), robotics, artificial intelligence (AI), and augmented reality (AR). He focuses on designing, developing, and evaluating novel robotic systems and interactions, for embodied robots to be more capable and understandable while interacting and collaborating with humans. He received the best long-paper award at INLG 2022 and the best late-breaking report third prize at HRI 2022. Previously, he had led teams to win multiple international and national robot competitions, including first place in the Panasonic Prototype 3D LiDAR Challenge and second place in the FetchIt Mobile Manipulation Challenge at ICRA 2019. In addition to research, he received a university-wide Mines Diversity, Inclusion, and Access (DI&A) Award in 2022. He holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from UMass Lowell, advised by AAAI Fellow Dr. Holly Yanco. He received his M.S. and B.S. degrees in Computer Science from the University of Manitoba in Canada. The University of South Florida (USF)<https://www.usf.edu/> is a high-impact global research university dedicated to student success and has an annual budget of 2.34 billion (2022-2023). Ranked top 100 in U.S. News & World Report’s national university rankings, no other public university in the US has risen faster than USF in the past decade. USF is classified among “R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity”, and according to the National Science Foundation, USF spent $568 million on research and development in 2019, ranking it 43rd in the US and 25th among public universities. Serving over 49,000 students, USF is designated as one of three Preeminent State Research Universities<https://admissions.usf.edu/blog/what-is-preeminence-and-why-it-matters-to-y…> by the Florida Board of Governors, receiving additional financial support from the state of Florida for student success and research. Learn more on USF’s about page<https://www.usf.edu/about-usf/index.aspx>. USF is located in the City of Tampa on the west coast of the Sunshine State of Florida. Full of opportunities and possibilities, the Tampa Bay area has around 3 million people and is one of the top places to live. Learn more about Florida Gulf Coast Living<https://www.usf.edu/admissions/freshmen/why-usf/our-campuses/gulf-coast-liv…> for why over 49,000 students have chosen USF as well as the US<https://www.visittheusa.com/destination/tampa-bay>, state<https://www.visitflorida.com/places-to-go/central-west/tampa/>, and local<https://www.visittampabay.com/> resources. ________________________________ A complete application package includes: * Unofficial Transcripts (including the grade sheet and diploma, if applicable) * If admitted, official transcripts and test scores will need to be submitted to Graduate Admissions but unofficial transcripts/scores can be used in reviewing the application. * PDF of GRE Scores * CV/Resume * Statement of Purpose * 3 Letters of Recommendation (Must be on official letterhead with recommender’s title and contact) * PDF of English Proficiency Scores, if applicable For consideration, please mention Dr. Zhao Han in your application materials and apply through the USF graduate student admission process<https://www.usf.edu/admissions/graduate/admission-information/>. The current admission cycle is Spring 2024. To be admitted to Fall 2023, you must also 1. Email your application package without the recommendation letters to zhaohan(a)mines.edu 2. Ask each of your three recommendation letter writers to email their letter to zhaohan(a)mines.edu By applying in the USF’s admissions portal, any other interested faculty member can also review your application. All applications and recommendation letters must be submitted to the USF admissions portal and emailed to Dr. Zhao Han by April 15. Applications will be considered starting immediately. International students should apply soon because visa applications require additional time. Once an admission offer is accepted, Research Assistantship offer decisions will be made once Dr. Zhao Han arrives at USF in August. --- Zhao Han, Ph.D.<https://zhaohanphd.com/> (he/him<https://pronouns.org/>) Post-Doctoral Fellow, Computer Science, Brown Hall, 280M Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO 80401, USA zhaohanphd.com<https://zhaohanphd.com/> | @hanzhao<https://twitter.com/hanzhao> <https://twitter.com/hanzhao>

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[meetings] [CFP] RO-MAN 2023 Special Session on “HRI in Academia and Industry: Bridging the Gap”
by Ross Mead 07 Mar '23

07 Mar '23

[CALL FOR PAPERS] SPECIAL SESSION on “HRI in Academia and Industry: Bridging the Gap” @ IEEE RO-MAN 2023 - Submission Website: http://ro-man2023.org/paperSubmission/papersubmission - Special Session Submission Code: an7c7 IMPORTANT DATES - *NEW* Paper Submission Deadline: March 31, 2023 (AoE) - Notification of Acceptance: May 26, 2023 - Final Paper Submission: June 30, 2023 AIM AND SCOPE The use of robots that operate in spaces where humans are present is growing at a dramatic rate. We are seeing more and more robots in warehouses, on streets, and even in our homes. All of these robots will, as part of their primary function, interact with humans in some way. In order to be successful, their interactions with humans will have to be carefully designed. The field of Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) has been growing at the intersection of robotics, AI, psychology, and a number of other fields. However, until quite recently, it has been a largely academic area, with university researchers proposing, implementing, and reporting on experiments at a limited scale. With the current increase of commercially-available robots, HRI is starting to make its way into industry in a meaningful way. This special session is intended to bring together HRI researchers and practitioners from both academia and industry, to discuss how these areas are different in their needs and approaches, and to figure out how HRI researchers and practitioners in these areas can work together – How can we make academic HRI research and education more relevant to industrial needs? How can industry support and contribute to more science-focused HRI? The special session will attract contributions on four broad themes, outlined below, in an attempt to build a new community interested in how these two active areas of HRI research and practice can work more closely together, and support each other in practical terms. We welcome research and case study papers with at least one section devoted to addressing some of the questions outlined below in the discussion section. We also invite survey and position paper contributions that directly surveys or discusses some of the below questions. - The Constraints and Needs of HRI in Industry - What are the constraints of deploying HRI at scale in consumer robots? - What are the pressing HRI problems that the industry wants to solve? Why? - How do we measure the success of HRI in a consumer product? - What HRI research can we do in an industry setting that we can’t do in academia? - The Relevance and Innovation of Academic HRI - What are the constraints of HRI research in an academic environment? - What industrial or consumer applications drive interesting academic HRI research? - How do we measure the success of academic HRI beyond controlled experiments and p-values? - What HRI research can we do in an academic setting that we can’t do in industry? - Interaction between Academic and Industrial HRI: Publications, Conferences, Tools/Technology Resources, and Experiments - What are the constraints of publishing in industry, and how do we address them? - How can academic & industrial HRI researchers collaborate meaningfully across the IP boundary? - How can industry HRI research benefit more from science-driven approaches? - How can academic HRI research benefit more from real-world problems? - HRI Education and Training: What does Academia and Industry Need? - What does it mean to be an HRI researcher? What are required skill sets in industry & academia? - How should we be training future HRI researchers for industry and academic career paths? - Since HRI can touch on all aspects of a robot system, how much HRI should robot hardware and software developers know? - How can HRI researchers with interdisciplinary backgrounds integrate successfully with hardware and software development teams? How much technical background do they need to know? Contributions The special session contributions will go through the same peer review process as regular track papers, and the accepted manuscripts will appear in the Ro-Man23 proceedings. Please follow the directions as provided in the conference website: http://ro-man2023.org/paperSubmission/papersubmission In Steps 3 and 4, select "Special Session Paper" under the First Submission category, and enter the following code to submit to our session. - Special Session Submission Code: an7c7 Organizers - Hae Won Park (Amazon Lab126 and MIT) - Bill Smart (Amazon Lab126 and Oregon State University) - Ross Mead (Semio) - Chien-Ming Huang (Johns Hopkins University) - Anastasia K. Ostrowski (MIT) -- Ross Mead, PhD Founder and CEO ross(a)semio.ai +1 (618) 696-2600 <https://semio.ai>

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[meetings][CFP] RO-MAN 2023 - Special Session "To err is robotic: Understanding, preventing and resolving robots' failures in HRI"
by Alessandra Rossi 15 Feb '23

15 Feb '23

*Apologies for any cross-posting* Dear colleagues, We are very pleased to invite you to the Special Session called *To err is robotic: Understanding, preventing and resolving robots' failures in HRI *( code u3f1h)*.* This special session welcomes works: 1) focusing on how people from perceive robot's failures in short- and long-term interactions, and highlight how different failures influence their perceptions and emotions toward the robots, and 2) exploring different techniques (e.g. inner speech, predictability and transparency of robotic behaviours, Theory of Mind, robot etiquette, Verification Methods, explanations) can foster a natural human-robot communication to reduce the perception of failures and/or help people understand the implications, risks, and goals of robot behaviour. This Special Session is organised within the 32nd IEEE International Conference on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (IEEE RO-MAN 2023) will be held at Paradise Hotel in Busan, South Korea from August 28 to 31, 2023. Please find attached the full call for papers for the Special Session "*To err is robotic: Understanding, preventing and resolving robots' failures in HRI*". Kindest regards Alessandra Rossi, Kheng Lee Koay, Kerstin S. Haring ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- SPECIAL SESSION To err is robotic: Understanding, preventing and resolving robots' failures in HRI Code u3f1h Robots placed in human-oriented dynamic environments, such as private homes, shopping malls, healthcare facilities, are likely to exhibit occasional behaviours which are perceived by people as unexpected, failures, or actual errors. Robots' errors can negatively affect people's perception of the robotic behaviours, in terms of usefulness, functionalities and capabilities, trustworthiness and acceptability. Robotics errors and how these are perceived by people do not only depend on robot self, but they are also a consequence of other factors. For example, they may be a consequence of human errors, or an unclear and non-transparent communication, or they may depend on a misunderstanding and miscommunication of the social, psychological and cognitive conventions expected by people. Moreover, there are also some cases in which these behaviours may be perceived as if robots intentionally deceive or cheat people. As a consequence, these may result in people wrongly interpreting and predicting the robots’ intents and behaviours, and negatively affecting Human-Robot Interaction (HRI). This session will focus on examine how people from perceive robot's failures in short- and long-term interactions, and highlight how different failures influence their perceptions and emotions toward the robots. This will help with subject related to classifying of robot errors from the aspect of human (e.g. intentional, voluntarily, perceived vs. real errors -- recklessness, forgetfulness, poor motivation --) and robot dimensions (e.g. actual error - algorithms, sensors, actuators). Moreover, while dealing with robotic failures, it is fundamental to consider two different strategies. The first one is oriented to prevent robots from exhibiting unintended behaviours, which in some extreme cases may even endanger people’s, pets’ safety, or break objects. Some examples are meant to enable robots to adapt and recover from any erroneous behaviour, such as the use of Software Verification Methods, Theory of Mind, robot etiquette. Others are focused on mitigating the effects of robot errors with apologies, promises or creating transparent robotic behaviours. This session will explore how different techniques can be used to enhancing natural human-robot communication (such as inner speech, legibility, predictability and transparency of robotic behaviours, explicit and non-explicit strategies) to help people understand the implications, risks, and goals of robots' behaviours and to mitigate the perception of the failures. In this session, we also want to explore strategies both to prevent robots from exhibiting unintended behaviours, and to mitigate the effects of robot errors on human-robot interaction. The topics covered in this special session are in line with the main theme of the conference (i.e., “Design New Bridge for H-R-I”). In particular, we want to start by fostering the [R] Robotic Recovery and Reconnection to allow [I] Intelligent Interface and Interaction for the [H] Human Health, Happiness and Hope. Notably, accepted topics include, but are not limited to: - Explainable AI (XAI) in HRI - Multi-modal situation awareness and spatial cognition - Social intelligence for robots in interactive and non-interactive tasks - Verifications Methods for autonomous agents - Legibility, Predictability and Transparency in HRI - Cognitive robotics - Deception in HRI - Robot cheating in HRI - Theory of Mind, Mental models in HRI - Robot etiquette - Modelling Trust and Acceptance in HRI Important Dates All dates are in UTC Time Standard Initial Paper Submission Deadline: March 17, 2023 Notification of Acceptance: May 26, 2023 Final Paper Submission: June 30, 2023 How to submit Authors should submit their papers electronically in PDF format via the Papercept submission site. For the initial submission, a manuscript can be of 6-8 pages including references. For the final submission, a manuscript should be of 6 pages, With 2 additional pages allowed with an extra charge (TBA). All papers are reviewed using a single-blind review process. All papers are reviewed using a single-blind review process: authors declare their names and affiliations in the manuscript for the reviewers to see, but reviewers do not know each other's identities, nor do the authors receive information about who has reviewed their manuscript. Authors should use the templates provided by the electronic submission system. The templates for US Letter format paper should be used. Please use the following templates: Templates: LaTeX <https://ras.papercept.net/conferences/support/tex.php> or MSWord <https://ras.papercept.net/conferences/support/word.php> Papers should be submitted on http://ras.papercept.net/ under the "Submit a contribution to RO-MAN 2023", by selecting special session paper, and use the code: u3f1h Do not forget the code and to select the special session paper. Organisers Dr. Alessandra Rossi - University of Naples Federico II, Italy - alessandra.rossi(a)unina.it Kheng Lee Koay - University of Hertfordshire, UK - k.l.koay(a)herts.ac.uk Kerstin Sophie Haring - University of Denver, USA - b.d.researcher(a)ieee.org For further information, please do not hesitate to contact us!

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[call-for-participation] ICRA2023 Preparation and dish Up of an English Breakfast with Robots (PUB.R) competition
by Francesco Del Duchetto 14 Feb '23

14 Feb '23

======================================================= **** Call for Participation ***** ICRA2023 Preparation and dish Up of an English Breakfast with Robots (PUB.R) competition May 29 to June 2, 2023 (In-person: Excel London, UK) https://lcas.lincoln.ac.uk/wp/pubr ======================================================= Within the framework of the 2023 edition of the ICRA conference, we invite teams to test the design and control of their robots in the Preparation and dish Up of an English Breakfast with Robots (PUB.R) competition. The competition will showcase the last advancements in food handling and preparation by challenging traditional robotics domains, including navigation, manipulation, and scene understanding, but also proposing novel scientific challenges, such as robotic food tasting, communication, creativity, and art. Teams may comprise any combination of students, academic members, private partners, government institutions, etc., without restriction on the number of participants per team. One member of the team must be elected as Team Leader (TL) and will act as a contact point for the team. The PUB.R competition comprises three different scenarios: Shopping, Cooking, and Serving – each challenging different research aspects integrated into a single overarching goal. In the first scenario (Shopping), a subset of spices and sauces should be collected from a pantry area, and brought to the cooking station to prepare the desired recipe. In the second scenario (Cooking), the food has to be prepared, cooked and arranged on the plate by taking into consideration taste and appearance of the final dish. In the last scenario (Serving), a robot has to serve the meal to a table for judging preparation and plate arrangement, it has to explain the dish, and answer simple questions. For all scenarios, teams are invited to bring their own robot. However, a Tiago robot and a Baxter will be provided if requested. Each scenario is split down into tasks: points are awarded by executing partially or completely each task. The team earning the maximum number of points will be considered the winner of the PUB.R Competition 2023. *** Competition Website Additional information about the competition, rules and registration are available at https://lcas.lincoln.ac.uk/wp/pubr *** Important Dates April 14, 2023 Deadline for submitting application and qualification material April 15, 2023 Acceptance notification April 21, 2023 Deadline for accepted teams to confirm their participation May 30-June 2, 2023 Competition *** Organisers University of Lincoln: - Marcello Calisti, Associate Professor in Agri-Robotics, Lincoln Institute for Agri-Food Technology - Francesco Del Duchetto, Lecturer in Robotics and Autonomous Systems, Lincoln Centre for Autonomous Systems - Marc Hanheide, Professor of Intelligent Robotics & Interactive Systems, Lincoln Centre for Autonomous Systems - Elizabeth Sklar, Professor in Agri-Robotics, Lincoln Institute for Agri-Food Technology University of Cambridge: - Fulvio Forni, Associate Professor in Engineering, Department of Engineering - Fumiya Iida, Professor of Robotics, Department of Engineering *** Contacts For any additional request or information, please contact: Marcello Calisti mcalisti(a)lincoln.ac.uk or Francesco Del Duchetto fdelduchetto(a)lincoln.ac.uk. We look forward to your unique and exceptional solutions and seeing your robots showcase their skills at ICRA!

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[@Home2023-Qualification] (Tinker)
by 秦馨瑶 11 Feb '23

11 Feb '23

Dear Sir: Sorry that I have some trouble when sending our email to the committee through rc-home-oc(a)lists.robocup.org.I was always informed that my email was being held because I was not in the member list. I wonder if you could please help me submit our information to the committee. Team Name: Tinker League: OPL Country: China Affiliation: Tsinghua University Team Leader Name: Xinyao Qin Contact information (E-mail): qinxy20(a)mails.tsinghua.edu.cn Rank in local tournaments:9 Link to a team video: https://cloud.tsinghua.edu.cn/d/1ae2b3d968ac4fdea094/ Link to a team web site devoted to their efforts: 2022.tinker.tsinghua-furoc.com Our TDP is attached to the email based on the official template. Because China has adjusted the policy of epidemics, we ensure that we can go to the offline competition this year. Looking forward to your reply! Thank you!

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[@Home] 2023 Rulebook Draft
by Mauricio Matamoros 21 Jan '23

21 Jan '23

Dear all, Please find attached the latest draft of the 2023 RoboCup@Home Rulebook. The rulebook is also available in the @Home website <https://athome.robocup.org/rules/> and here <https://athome.robocup.org/wp-content/uploads/2023_rulebook_draft.pdf>. The format of the competition has changed from previous years. During Stage I competitors will test their robots in all 5 predefined tests. The top 50% will advance to Stage II and be challenged with 4 tests. The top performers will advance to the finals where the victor will be elected. Unlike former years, all tests have a fixed schedule and teams have a single try with a restart. With kind regards, and looking forward to see you give your best in the arena, Mauricio Matamoros In behalf of the RoboCup@Home TC

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[@Home] 2023 Rulebook Draft
by Mauricio Matamoros 21 Jan '23

21 Jan '23

Dear all, Please find attached the latest draft of the 2023 RoboCup@Home Rulebook. The rulebook is also available in the @Home website <https://athome.robocup.org/rules/> and here <https://athome.robocup.org/wp-content/uploads/2023_rulebook_draft.pdf>. The format of the competition has changed from previous years. During Stage I competitors will test their robots in all 5 predefined tests. The top 50% will advance to Stage II and be challenged with 4 tests. The top performers will advance to the finals where the victor will be elected. Unlike former years, all tests have a fixed schedule and teams have a single try with a restart. With kind regards, and looking forward to see you give your best in the arena, Mauricio Matamoros In behalf of the RoboCup@Home TC

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Rulebook changes 2023
by Dooren, Peter van 21 Jan '23

21 Jan '23

Dear Robocup teams, The TC has been in discussion for a few months now on the rulebook for Robocup 2023. We have decided to change the format of the competition. In previous years teams were allowed to choose which challenges they participated in in a given timeslot. This year we will revert to the format of 2017 where we have set challenges in each timeslot. This means some challenges will no longer be part of the league. We understand that this is a major change so below we will provide our reasoning. Having teams choose their own challenges meant that teams could focus on their own strengths. However over the past couple of years we noticed some drawbacks to this format as well. Teams would choose the challenges where it was easiest to score points and challenges that were difficult but very scientifically interesting would not be chosen as they were too risky. Furthermore it became hard to compare the performance of teams as extra emphasis had to be placed on making sure the points that could be scored had to be ‘balanced’ across challenges. This was already a difficult task but especially when teams can choose their challenges it makes the competition a game of ‘who can score the most points’ rather than ‘whose robot is the best’. With the new format we hope to see teams participate in the same challenges. This makes it easier to align “scoring points” and “the robot being the best”, allowing teams to focus on making the best robot rather than what scores the most points. The challenges that will be part of the Robocup 2023 tournament: 1. Carry my luggage 2. Receptionist 3. Storing groceries 4. Serve breakfast 5. GPSR 6. Clean the table 7. Restaurant 8. Stickler for the rules 9. EGPSR The TC may make some more minor changes to these challenges and the final rulebook will be published on March 31st. Kind regards, the Technical Commission

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