Hi Timothy,

I am Giuliano from team NomadZ of ETH Zurich. Our team has always been in the middle between the Challenge Shield and the Champions Cup so I suppose we should join in the discussion.

I have talked to my team and the TL;DR answer is that we are generally against this split.

There is already a soft distinction between top teams and everyone else, and this change would solidify the gap and make it even harder to cross.

Some of our more senior / alumni members suggested:

* Having a separate "Super League" for the top-4 teams to play on top of the current tournament * Focusing more on understanding why the weaker teams are weaker and what can be done to support them

Best, Giuliano Albanese

________________________________ From: Timothy Wiley t***********y@rmit.edu.au Sent: 29 August 2021 05:10 To: r*********o@lists.robocup.org Subject: Feedback on potential rule change(s) separating Challenge Shield and Champions Cup

Dear SPL Teams,

For the attention of teams who participate in the RoboCup Challenge Shield.

One of the proposals that the TC is considering is having a separation in rules between the Champions Cup and the Challenge Shield. The purpose of this is to allow the top teams to be sufficiently challenged by rule changes without forcing every team to make the same rate of progress. The implications of this change are as follows:

* Teams would not be able to move between the Challenge Shield and Champions Cup at a single RoboCup event. * This would permit the rule set for the Challenge Shield to be a subset of the the Champions Cup rules within the same year. * Between years if a team was “promoted" from the Challenge Shield to the Champions Cup, they would need some extra effort to step up to the rule set of the Champions Cup. * Possible real differences include: * Different number of robots on each team such as 5v5 in the challenger league and 7v7 in the championship league. * New rules changes might start in the Champions Cup and then be rolled out to the Challenge Shield in later years.

We would like the feedback of the Challenge Shield teams (who had limited representation at RoboCup 2021 team leader meetings) on potential change to see if this would be a change that they would support.

Please respond by reply to this email by September 5th if with your comments and feedback on this change and if your team supports a split in the rules between the two leagues within a given year.

Regards, Timothy Wiley On behalf of the RoboCup Soccer SPL TC.