June 2021 - RoboCup-small - lists.robocup.org

End of RoboCup 2021
by Carla Cosenza 28 Jun '21

28 Jun '21

Hello! As RoboCup 2021 comes to an end, we would like to thank everyone for participating! We know that circumstances were not ideal for us, but all the hard work and effort each and every one of you put in made this competition possible and amazing! We do have a few announcements for you about the competition and we hope to see everyone of you, in person, in Thailand next year! Awards and certificates In case you missed the awards ceremony, the list of the recipients of our awards and certificates can be found on the website<https://ssl.robocup.org/robocup-2021-awards/>, along with the final rankings<https://ssl.robocup.org/robocup-2021-results/> for all competitions. Group photo Given that it was not possible to have everyone together because of all the conflicting time zones, Selina made a compiled photo of everyone! You can also download the photo here<https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZpvgCNZnBku5B07GmpZGE5Z2eomGaGCV/view?usp=…>. [https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/5aDSlZ9xj-tuxZ4NVxUiewyx22Y20qT4rfqbRuC_s…] Open OC/TC Meeting We will host our traditional OC/TC meeting to discuss anything related to SSL and this year’s competition. We know that everyone is tired and wants to rest after this intense week, so we will schedule it in the coming weeks. As to not forget what you want to discuss, please jot down your discussion topics on this document<https://docs.google.com/document/d/1MMUPNaxnxabsZ1xzSWxMVwDUt4Kznjy9qhzeQUW…>, which we will use as a base to create the agenda for the meeting. Feedback We would also like teams to fill out this form<https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdcb_-6CX0CfHhPhiJKtQyqBDSK4vXjf94…> regarding feedback of the competition this year. It was a different style and we would like to know what went well and what did not. Some points of interest might later become topics in the Open OC/TC Meeting. OC/TC/EC members for 2022 We are very happy to announce the committee members that will help organize SSL RoboCup 2022! Organizing committee: Carla Cosenza (Chair), Selina Zwerver, Tobias Heineken, and Shosei Fujita Technical committee: Nicolai Ommer (Chair), Mohammad Mahdi Shirazi, and Lucas Cavalcanti Executive committee: Toko Sugiura, Ersin Aytac, and Masahide Ito We would like to welcome the new members and ask them to email us in private to give us their contact information. Thank you and see you all next year! Carla Cosenza RoboCup Small Size League | Organizing Committee

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Candidate recommendation for 2021-2022 TC/OC members
by Masahide ITO 26 Jun '21

26 Jun '21

Dear SSL RoboCuppers, The current EC members (Joydeep, Ersin, and Masa) are looking for a nice person as a TC/OC/EC member to RoboCup 2022. Could you please (self-)recommend candidates of TC/OC members to RoboCup 2022 at the following link?: https://forms.gle/5EEeSsFRuM3dwt8e6 Note that - *one* answer from one team can be accepted; - the deadline is 12:00 UTC on Friday 25 June. Let’s enjoy RoboCup 2021!! Thanks! Best regards, Joydeep, Ersin, and Masa

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RoboCup 2021 – Open Source Award Submission RoboFEI
by Bruno Bollos 22 Jun '21

22 Jun '21

Dear SSL community, Since the end of 2020, we have been releasing a good number of repositories as open source software. We are doing it for two main reasons. Firstly, we believe on the give-a-penny-take-a-pennyconcept. Based on this principle, since we are daily using lots of open source software developed by the Small Size League Community, we should also share our software in a sign of gratitude, in a way of contributing to the community have always supported us. Secondly, we believe that sharing software is important for educational purposes, we have learned a lot from open source software (like how to rewrite and reuse a piece of software) and we hope that, releasing our software to the public, we can help others in that way too. Sharing software is equivalent to sharing knowledge, which is beneficial for everyone. Below you will find our publications on the last year: Software (SSL-Strategy) Link: <https://gitlab.com/robofei/ssl/SSL-Strategy> Languages:C++ (almost 99% of the source code); Python; QMake This is the software that we use during RoboCup matches. Its main purpose is to control one team during a Small Size League game. The GUI is highly customizable (with options like selecting number of defenders and offenders, the maximum speed of the robots, the maximum strength of a kick and so on). It has a nice graphical client for visualizing the field and some options, like the interaction with the simulator. The source code and the interface are all in Brazilian Portuguese idiom, so it might be difficult to use it for non-Portuguese speakers. Nevertheless, we are planning to add an English translation to the software; that way, the GUI could be used in both, English and Portuguese languages. Software (LogAnalyserRoboFEI-SSL) Link: <https://gitlab.com/robofei/ssl/LogAnalyserRoboFei-SSL> Languages:C++; QMake This software is based on the Robocup Small Size League C++ Log Tools (https://github.com/RoboCup-SSL/ssl-logtools) and on the RoboFEI Small Size League Main Software (https://gitlab.com/robofei/ssl/SSL-Strategy). It provides a simple log player combined with a graphical client can that read vision and referee messages (from the network or directly from the log player). Furthermore it provides more options for loading and playing a match log file; for example, it is possible to ignore the match states when the game is stopped or halted and consider the other states. The Kalman filter from our main software is also embedded with the application. Other additional functionalities like, download the Match League Log Files directly from the software and the use of predefined shortcuts provides an easy environment for the user watch Small Size League matches recorded or in real time. At last, the Enable Analysis option activates a feature that can check when a shoot move or pass move occurs and evaluates this move in a 0 to 250 scale. At the end, a file is generated with the results. We are working on an implementation that provides a game statistics viewer tool that shows statistics of the game (like the ball possession, the amount of passes and pass precision, shoots to goal and so on), but it is still in development. Software (JoystickRobotController): Link: <https://gitlab.com/robofei/ssl/joystickrobotcontroller> Languages:C++; QMake The objective of this software is to easily test the RoboFEI robots – verifying if the robots wheels, kick sensor, dribbler, and other components are working properly. It makes it possible to control the robot, either with a joystick controller or with a computer keyboard. Sincerely, The RoboFEI team.

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Robot Specs
by Carla Cosenza 22 Jun '21

22 Jun '21

Dear SSL Teams, There have been some complaints about the acceleration and max_speed in the simulation. While we intended to model the fact that we all have real robots and all robots are different, we noticed that the accelerations and speeds are not what we expected. Some teams that performed very well in terms of acceleration and speed during the last physical RoboCup in Sydney seem to be ending up at the slow side in this year's simulation. This could be due to improper specification regarding the kind of acceleration we meant (perfect conditions or something you can reach reliably), or teams could have copied others if they had no idea how to get these values or weren't able to go to their lab to determine them. Furthermore, we as the TC/OC might be to blame for not coming up with a good scalable way of checking the values you submitted, and teams preferring overestimating themselves over underestimating. Whatever it might be, the TC/OC decided that we will switch to a common acceleration profile, starting from the lucky losers and knockout matches. The common accelerations will be the average of all submitted specs, i.e: acc_speedup_absolute_max: 4.7, acc_speedup_angular_max: 50.8, acc_break_absolute_max: 5.9, acc_break_angular_max: 51.6, vel_absolute_max: 3.7, vel_angular_max: 26.2 We apologize for the inconvenience. Carla Cosenza RoboCup Small Size League | Organizing Committee

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RoboCup 2021 – Open Source Award Submission TIGERs Mannheim
by Andre R. 22 Jun '21

22 Jun '21

Dear SSL-community, as in the past years we are very happy to announce our entry for the Open Source Award. We are doing a complete and full release of everything we have, including electronics, mechanics, and our full AI. Below, you will find a list of our publications. The documentation or description is included within the individual packages. Mechanics: A completely redesigned robot (v2020), already online for over a year now as announced on Discord. https://github.com/TIGERs-Mannheim/mechanics Electronics: New electronics with a faster charging kicker, more robustness and our new pattern identification system (detects the pattern on the robots cover). https://github.com/TIGERs-Mannheim/electronics Firmware: New onboard control algorithm with friction modelling and compensation for our new wheel arrangement of v2020 robots. A lot of smaller bugfixes as well. Also includes our wireless protocol and base station firmware. https://github.com/TIGERs-Mannheim/Firmware Software (AI): The heart and brain of our team, the central control software Sumatra. Available as download: https://tigers-mannheim.de/download/release2021/Software-2021.tar.gz And on Github: https://github.com/TIGERs-Mannheim/Sumatra Of course, compatible with the simulation protocol. So you can test your AI against ours locally. In case you are missing any information or if you are just curios, contact us on Discord or write us an email. Tigertastic Greetings, TIGERs Mannheim

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RoboCup 2021 - Open Source Award Submission ER-Force
by Paul Bergmann 21 Jun '21

21 Jun '21

Dear SSL community, as in past years, we are happy to submit our entry for the Open Source Award. You will find a list of our publications below. Framework + Simulator: This is the main software we use to develop and test our AI. It is able to - simulate this year's SSL games - control robots - create game recordings and play them back ...and much more. The repository also contains our simulator, bundled as a standalone executable for usage in this years RoboCup. https://github.com/robotics-erlangen/framework Autoref This is our automatic referee, that detects the various rule infringements teams can commit during a SSL game. https://github.com/robotics-erlangen/autoref In case you have questions about our software or are just curious, feel welcome to write an email to info(a)robotics-erlangen.de Best regards ER-Force -- Robotics Erlangen e.V.

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Team TritonsRCSC Poster
by Hongtao Zhang 21 Jun '21

21 Jun '21

Hi, RoboCup SSL OC/TC, The poster for our team is attached to this email. Thank you, Sincerely

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Schedule & Friendly Matches during Robocup 2021
by Tobias Heineken 20 Jun '21

20 Jun '21

Dear SSL Teams, I'm excited for this years competition, starting in a few hours from now. I wanted to write some lines regarding the schedule and friendly matches. Firstly, please keep a close eye on the tournament overview, found https://scheduling.virtual.ssl.robocup.org/tournament_overview, especially for your referee assignments (but also for your matches). The schedule has to be dynamic this year to allow everyone to play in daytime, so it updates automatically when results are entered. In this years complicated schedule it is very important to avoid unnecessary delays. Make sure your team is ready to play at the required time (and not half an hour late). Make also sure to wake up early to check if new matches for your team or new referee assignments were scheduled during your local night. If matches do run over, try to start the next match on time by switching to a different field. Please be prepared to switch fields on relatively short notice. Also, if you are the referee, please insert (and check to insert the result correctly (!)) the results into https://scheduling.virtual.ssl.robocup.org/results. As the schedule is highly dynamic, we need you to insert these results to continue planning and searching for a fair schedule for everyone. There will be issues if results are not inserted within a few hours, so please insert them directly after the game ended. Just like in a normal Robocup, we also provide you with time on the official fields for testing purposes. You can request friendly matches (or just time on the official fields) via https://scheduling.virtual.ssl.robocup.org/request_friendly. To log in, just use your teams login for the vnc. If you'd like to use an already taken slot, and there's just one team playing against themselves at that time, try to ask them if you can share the field. Most of the time teams don't actually need the full field :) Friendlies during the first half group stage are simple: if there are fields still open, the scheduler will give that field to you. If your request is denied and there are still open fields, it is most likely conflicting with an official event like the opening ceremony. As soon as one group finishes, there will be no friendly matches until all groups have finished. This may sound overly restrictive, but is necessary. If you schedule a friendly for after the group stage, but the group stage results aren't in yet, the decision is postponed until we know the results for each group. Please be patient in a case like this where your request might be pending for hours, it most likely is this very case where we just cannot guess the results of the group stage and multiply the already large search-tree by 4! ** 4. As soon as the group staged is completely over, the scheduler runs through all of the remaining ~2**26 possible schedules to verify your request. So if your request is denied, you can try a different time, or you can try again later - especially if there is still some time until your booked time slot - when more results are in and some of the schedules have become no longer relevant. See you, Tobias Heineken Organizing Committee

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Demo Match!
by Carla Cosenza 19 Jun '21

19 Jun '21

Hello Small Size League! As stated in a previous email, we will be hosting a demonstration match this weekend so teams can see how the virtual tournament will be. This match will happen tomorrow, Sunday 20th, 2021, at 10:00 GMT. The match will be held on Field A; you can find the links to the zoom sessions of each field/challenge in the SSL gather.town that you should have been invited to by Underline, so please don’t forget to join! We would like to thank TIGERs and ER-Force for agreeing to participate in this demo match and we hope to see you all there! For those teams that cannot be present at that time, we will record it and have it posted for everyone. Thank you! Carla Cosenza

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RoboCup 2021 Small Size League 1 week update
by Carla Cosenza 17 Jun '21

17 Jun '21

Hello! As RoboCup is getting closer and closer, we would like to give a few updates regarding the competition! Ball Placement Technical Challenge In an email a long time ago, we stated that the Ball Placement Technical Challenge would be mandatory for all teams in division B. Given that we are not using division this year and we only mentioned this in the TC rules, not in any email, we have decided to not make it mandatory for this year. So far, we have interpreted the type of the technical challenge based on past division participation. If you wanted to participate in the blackout challenge, but never participated in division A, please let us know. Providing Referees As usual, teams are expected to provide referees for matches. The rules specify four roles: Primary referee, assistant referee, game-controller operator and vision expert. We do not need the vision-expert this year. Each match will have a primary and a secondary team assigned for being referee. The primary team will provide the primary referee and the GC operator, the other will provide the assistant referee. However, both teams should be prepared to provide two people, because in case the primary refereeing team does not show up in time, the secondary team will take over and thus needs two persons. Updated Schedule We updated the schedule to make the group stage a bit less dense. By increasing the time between the matches, we had to redo all referee assignments. Take a look at the new schedule: [https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/05rIIMWIsSj-KqlkAfIwo-w8ULEiOmfYrFeR1B6A2…] When TC / OC are scheduled as referees, these are placeholders for the automated referee assignment. This happens when every team is either playing a match, having their rest, or is already refereeing at that time slot. We will need additional volunteering teams to cover these. This is especially relevant at 21-06-21 13:00, where we have scheduled 3 placeholders. Please let us know if you can help us cover those :) Hopefully, the schedule shouldn’t change anymore for the group stage. Procedure documentation We have added the detailed procedure and requirements for the hardware challenge in the rules, see https://robocup-ssl.github.io/ssl-hardware-challenge-rules/rules.html#_requ… and https://robocup-ssl.github.io/ssl-hardware-challenge-rules/rules.html#_gene… Scenario JSON-files for all challenges are also included in the repository: https://github.com/RoboCup-SSL/ssl-hardware-challenge-rules You are allowed to touch your software between each trial to initialize the scenarios, but you are not allowed to change anything for the scenario execution itself in between a challenge. We found this to be the most practical procedure. Please be fair and respect these rules. We also added the procedure for the referee of the virtual tournament matches to the website: https://ssl.robocup.org/robocup-2021-virtual-tournament/ Demonstration match We plan to do a demonstration match on the weekend to show how everything works with the virtual infrastructure. We will also record it so that everyone can watch it again. Stay tuned for more detailed information. Reminder: Access to the virtual environment We’d like to remind you that you can test the virtual tournament setup already. The servers are reachable here: https://virtual.ssl.robocup.org/ You need to provide your customized container and your robot specs via pull-request as mentioned in previous mails. You can have a look at PRs from other teams to get a better idea of what you are supposed to submit: https://github.com/RoboCup-SSL/ssl-simulation-setup/pulls?q=is%3Apr+is%3Acl… As soon as you have submitted both, ask for the credentials for your team, either via Discord per private message to Nicolai, or by email to the TC and OC mailing list. RoboCup Events The general organisation of the RoboCup organises several events during the week. The events and the times they take place in UTC are: * Opening Ceremony: 23th of June, 13:00-14:00 * Symposium Keynote Speaker 1: 23th of June 14:00-15:00 * Symposium Keynote Speaker 2: 25th of June, 13:30 - 14:30 * Symposium: 28th of June, 7:00-21:00 * Major/Junior Award Ceremony: 28th of June, 12:00-13:00 The schedule can also be seen here<https://2021.robocup.org/participants/schedule>. The schedule for the symposium can be seen here<https://2021.robocup.org/symposium>. These events will be hosted on underline.io. A link will be sent later. Attendance at these events is not mandatory, but is expected. Please direct all inquiries to the Small Size League Organizing Committee: rc-ssl-oc(a)lists.robocup.org Thank you! Carla Cosenza RoboCup Small Size League | Organizing Committee

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