- RoboCup-small - lists.robocup.org

Technical Challenge : Obstacle Avoidance scenarios
by Emiel Steerneman 15 Jul '25

15 Jul '25

Dear teams, Apologies for the previous email. I pressed some secret *send-this-email-out-immediately *keybinding. Attached to this mail you will find the 9 scenarios for the obstacle avoidance technical challenge. Note that there are *no *virtual lines between any robots in these scenarios. If you have not signed up yet for either or both of the technical challenges <https://ssl.robocup.org/history-of-technical-challenges/>, you can do so via the link <https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1WkwqbklRrxbV9sm3unPaqdBr0mw-JFMI-Lw_FB5UPm…> below. If your team will not attend any technical challenges, please also fill this out via the link below. The signup deadline is *today, July 15th, 20:00 o’clock BRT(Salvador local time).* Signup link https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1WkwqbklRrxbV9sm3unPaqdBr0mw-JFMI-Lw_FB5UPm… <https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1WkwqbklRrxbV9sm3unPaqdBr0mw-JFMI-Lw_FB5UPm…> Best regards, Emiel Steerneman - TC

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Technical Challenge : Obstacle Avoidance scenarios
by Emiel Steerneman 15 Jul '25

15 Jul '25

Dear teams, Attached to this mail you will find the 9 scenarios for the obstacle avoidance technical challenge. Note that there are *no *virtual lines between any robots in these scenarios. If you have not signed up yet either or both of the technical challenges, you can do so via the link below. Also, pl https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1WkwqbklRrxbV9sm3unPaqdBr0mw-JFMI-Lw_FB5UPm…

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First day of set up!
by Carla Cosenza 15 Jul '25

15 Jul '25

Hello! Welcome everyone to the first day of set up at RoboCup Salvador! Here is the link to the welcome packet<https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dM94b3HAYNjhw33NID7ebjI_1O5GGuKGgA-kuiV…> that is also found on your allocated work table. It has all the links necessary for the event. Please do take a look as the updated schedule is there! Please do not use the field until further notice! Happy to see all of you, Carla Cosenza RoboCup Small Size League | Organizing Committee

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RC 2025 one week out
by David Brand 08 Jul '25

08 Jul '25

Hello, Since the competition is one week from now, we want to send you another update Radio Information Request Please fill out the radio information survey so we know what radio technologies your team is using. This will let us allocate you a frequency and deconflict teams and the venue. The link is: https://forms.gle/eyNMYQga9B4DdseU8 Technical Challenges This year we will be hosting two technical challenges. The [team vs. team passing challenge](https://robocup-ssl.github.io/technical-challenge-rules/2025-ssl-team-vs-team-passing-challenge.html) with an updated ranking system open for teams from both divisions. On top of that, we will have a new [obstacle avoidance challenge](https://robocup-ssl.github.io/technical-challenge-rules/2025-ssl-obstacle-avoidance-challenge.html), which is only open for Div B teams. If you want to participate in at least one challenge please submit your intent via the corresponding [form](https://forms.gle/sd6ADCTkkcYU6DuY6) until July 15th, 20:00 o’clock BRT(Salvador local time). Award Voting Like last year we will be doing the voting this year via online forms. As we especially wanted to give you more time to evaluate the Open Source Submissions as well as the (E)TDPs, we also already set up the voting forms for both of them: - [Open Source Ballots](https://forms.gle/ktxk2gXsWgGgEQfM8) - [Best (E)TDP](https://forms.gle/yZEzGtcZLzgySHQ57) But as in the previous years the voting will only be due during the RoboCup as the Open Source Presentation is an essential part of the award. Also as last year you will be getting a unique team code, so that malicious votes can be eliminated. In case you already want to look at the questions beforehand, feel free to use “test” as team name as well as the unique code, which allows us to easily delete these votes. Referee Quiz As a quick reminder from the last mail, every team participating in the RoboCup2025 needs to be able to fill out their assigned impartial roles for matches, when they do not play. These members have to take the [referee quiz](https://forms.gle/8frZcLYPx5o3KVF29) beforehand. In case you have any open questions or any trouble during your travel, please let the OC/TC know as soon as possible. This allows us to see whether we can help you in any way. See you in Salvador! David, on behalf of the SSL committee

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Call for Scientific Publication Updates in SSL (pls submit until July 11th 🥺)
by Masahide ITO 07 Jul '25

07 Jul '25

Hi everyone, We would like to know the latest updates of your scientific publications. This is very important not only to share scientific and engineering results with you all but also for the SSL to show the presence in the RoboCup community. If you published international conference papers and journal papers within one year, please submit the information at the following link: https://forms.gle/R3zSRzxecyPwtoPD6 It would be great to submit *until July 11th*. The collected information will be published at the scientific publications page of the SSL website, i.e., https://ssl.robocup.org/scientific-publications/ Thank you! Masa School of Information Science and Technology Aichi Prefectural University 1522-3 Ibaragabasama, Nagakute, Aichi 480-1198, JAPAN Phone: +81-561-76-8600 (direct) / Fax: +81-561-64-1108 (share) Email: masa-ito(a)ist.aichi-pu.ac.jp

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RoboCup 2025 – Open Source Award Submission The A-Team
by Matt 02 Jul '25

02 Jul '25

Hello league-mates, This year, The A-Team would like to submit ssl_ros_bridge for the Open Source Award. https://github.com/SSL-A-Team/ssl_ros_bridge ssl_ros_bridge is a small collection of ROS2 utilities to help teams using ROS connect to SSL league software interfaces. It provides bridge nodes which manage network connections to ssl-vision and ssl-game-controller, exposing ROS topics and services mirroring the protobuf packets used by the league software. We hope this open source software will especially help new teams get started with SSL software without having to learn our league's network protocols in detail. It is offered as its own repository to make including it in other team's software easier. Thank you for your consideration, ~Matthew Barulic The A-Team

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RC 2025 two weeks out
by David Brand 01 Jul '25

01 Jul '25

Hi, As every year during the weeks before the RoboCup the number of mails increases and we just have a new one with more info for you: Schedule Using the random numbers 8902 and 5478, as by https://www.random.org/integers/?num=2&min=1&max=10000&col=5&base=10&format…, we got the following groups for the Division B tournament: ==== Grouping ==== Group A: - The-A-Team (USA) - ITAndroids (Brazil) - RoboFEI (BrazilB) - The-Bots (Canada) Group B: - RoboJackets (USA) - DelftMercurians (Netherlands) - Sysmic (Chile) - WarthogRobotics (Brazil) Based on that seeding, we have already updated the [official schedule](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1uNMfJM_ZOfLf-vYniD9r53NEZ… to represent the two groups and also added the Div A match groupings.. Referee Quiz To be allowed to fill in one of the impartial roles (assistant / main Referee, Game Controller Operator, Vision expert) during the official matches, you need to complete this year's referee quiz before the first competition day: https://forms.gle/J89PC24xrYohL8Xe9 Since all teams will need to take turns in filling in the impartial roles, if not at least two members of your team completed the quiz, your team can be excluded from the competition. Communication For the textbased communication during the RoboCup we will be using the [ssl mailing list](https://lists.robocup.org/mm/lists/robocup-small.lists.robocup.org/), as well as the [SSL discord](https://discord.gg/t724m8c) server. Especially for fast paced announcements from us, but also for communicating with the other teams the discord server is quite crucial. Therefore in case from your team not multiple, or ideally all, members joined both communication lines yet, please consider to do so. This helps us, as well as you, to be sure that you get critical information as soon as possible and in case that one team member might not read it, the others can forward the relevant information. In addition there is also an official Discord Server for the whole RoboCup, that is not just for this year's tournament, but also for other events, general exchanges during the year and more. In case you would like to join it, feel free to use this link: https://discord.gg/q4AfnY7fx6 Its goal is not to be a replacement of the SSL Discord Server but more an addition to communicate with members from other leagues and for RoboCup wide information. Colored robot hulls As you might have seen the Black and White Hulls rule got updated and is now called [Color of Robots](https://robocup-ssl.github.io/ssl-rules/sslrules.html#_color_of_robots). With this update the requirements about the size of the area changing the color got updated to accommodate smaller robots and is also a bit more relaxed with the usage of colors for differentiation. If you already implemented the Black and White Hull rule you should be fine and also compliant with it after its update. This year we will be very lenient, when validating the robots for tournament suitability, but have a look at them nonetheless, as the compliance with the rule will be part of the robot approval process from the next year on. What to bring Network: This year you will be provided with ONE ethernet plug for your team at the field, as well as ONE at your team table. Since that won’t be enough connection points for your whole team, please bring your own routers/switches. This is especially important, as personal wifis should be banned at the venue and it is yet not known to us whether there will be a public wifi. Power: Brazil uses the type N and C power plugs and outlets. Although the usual voltage used in Salvador is 127V / 60Hz, the outlets in the venue will supply 220 V / 60 Hz. Please check if your equipment supports both standards, especially the later one. In case you need more info, the local organizers have compiled all needed info on their homepage under the section [power and sockets](https://2025.robocup.org/practical-information/). General information: As some of our teams and adjacent leagues use the 2.4 GHz frequency range to control the robots, please avoid using wireless peripherals, like bluetooth headphones, mice, etc. in the same frequency range and therefore prefer to bring wired solutions. In addition to your robots you also need a machine for your central software. Since you may need to move your equipment from the competition to the practice field, a powerful laptop instead of a full size TowerPC is usually more convenient. As we need all teams to use the same color paper on top of their robots for a good calibrated vision setup, you will need to change the color paper at the venue. While we will provide you with the color paper you should bring the equipment you need to fabricate the round blobs as well as to change them inside your hull. If you have any open questions, feel free to reach out to the OC/TC, See you in Salvador! David, on behalf of the SSL committee

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RoboCup 2025 - Open Source Award Submission ER-Force
by Christoph Schmidtmeier 30 Jun '25

30 Jun '25

Hello everyone, ER-Force's submission for this year's Open Source Award is our framework ( https://github.com/robotics-erlangen/framework). This is the primary software we use to develop and test our AI. It is able to - receive and process real life vision data - simulate SSL games in a full physics simulation - connect to radio transceivers and control robots - create game recordings and play them back - run strategies written in Lua and TypeScript - display visualizations to help debug strategy decisions - …and much more. We have submitted it to the Open Source Award before, but we continue to maintain it, fix bugs and implement new features. Best regards, Christoph Schmidtmeier ER-Force

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RC 2025: Awards and Open Source Reminder
by David Brand 24 Jun '25

24 Jun '25

Hello, After the info yesterday about the tournament style and schedule we now also have more info regarding the awards. Excellence Award After internal discussions we decided not to change the Excellence Award this year. Therefore, just like last year, you are able to gain additional points for participating in the Technical Challenges, the Open Source Award as well as for contributing to SSL shared projects. Together with the points for the success in the tournament, as well as for the (E)TDP Quality, the team with the most points will win the Excellence Award. If you want to see the exact point distribution, have a look at the [Awards](https://ssl.robocup.org/robocups/robocup-2025/robocup-2025-awards/) homepage. Open Source Award As you have probably previously already seen, the deadline to submit your entrance to the Open Source Award has been moved to July 01st AoE (now only one week away!). This is to give the other teams more time to have a look into the submission and also try it for themself. In case you have missed the announcement of the Open Source Award, you can also find all needed info here: [Awards](https://ssl.robocup.org/robocups/robocup-2025/robocup-2025-awards/) All of the already made submission can be found [here](https://ssl.robocup.org/robocups/robocup-2025/robocup-2025-open-sourc… and the list will be continuously updated, so that you have a complete list for reference during the voting process Best (E)TDP Award As you might recall, we included a “Nomination for best (E)TDP award” question in the (E)TDP review process this year. This is intended to use the reviewers who had to read the (E)TDP already as a first screening, so that teams have to read fewer (E)TDPs for an informed decision about the best one. We have decided to nominate any (E)TDP for the award that got at least one nomination by their reviewers. This list is this year (in a random order): - The A-Team - ITAndroids - RobôCIn - ZJUNlict - Warthog Robotics - ER-Force - TIGERs Mannheim - RoboDragons We would ask all teams to have a look at these 8 (E)TDPs in preparation for the eventual vote in Salvador. If you have any open questions, feel free to reach out to the OC/TC, See you in Salvador! David and Tobi, on behalf of the SSL committee

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RC 2025: Tournament Style and Schedule
by David Brand 23 Jun '25

23 Jun '25

Hello, Since this year’s tournament is now only a couple of weeks away, we want to give you some information regarding the tournament schedule. General Tournament Timeline The local organization has already published the general timeline for the competition on their [homepage](https://2025.robocup.org/schedule/). The main information here is: Team Setup Days: Tuesday 15. - Wednesday 16. July Competition: Thursday 17. - Sunday 20. July Symposium: Monday 21. July (The venue will open on the tournament days from 8:00 on and will close from Tuesday to Saturday at 22:00) Tournament Style As we have a reduced number of teams this year, the style used this year got slightly adapted. Due to having only 5 Div A teams this year, the group stage will consist of only one group, where every team is playing once against each of the other teams. The knockout stage will be played in a double elimination stage, with all 5 teams taking part. With currently 8 teams in the Div B, the qualification stage will consist of two groups with each four teams, where all four teams are playing once against each other. In the knockout stage we will also have a double elimination system but start with all 8 teams. The teams will be drawn into groups using the SSL grouping tool (https://github.com/RoboCup-SSL/ssl-grouping). We have already updated the seeding pools for the Div B for this year's competition. The seeds are primarily determined by last year's results (https://ssl.robocup.org/robocups/robocup-2024/robocup-2024-results/), as well as the participation in previous RC tournaments. Since there are more than two Brazilian teams, but only two groups in Div B, we are unable to fully avoid teams from the same country competing against each other in the group stage. To solve this, we moved one of the Brazilian teams (RoboFEI) to their own nation (denoted as BrazilB in the seeding pool). While we understand this is slightly disappointing, we think this is a better compromise than ignoring the country of origin completely. Since in the Div A all teams will play against all others anyway, the correlation for T1 to T5 to teams is purely done by the ranking in last years competition and as following: T1: TIGERs Mannheim T2: ZJUNlict T3: ER-Force T4: RobôCIn T5: RoboDragons If you notice any issues with this seeding, please notify us before the 27th of June. This is important since we will draw groups on that day and we have a much harder time adjusting the seeding when the resulting groups are already available. As we always do, we will use random.org for the random seeds required for the tool. We will draw the groups using the pre-generated random numbers for the 27th of June (which will become available at https://www.random.org/integers/?num=2&min=1&max=10000&col=5&base=10&format… on that date) to seed our tool. (The numbers are used to seed Division B, as no numbers are required for Division A) Tournament Schedule The official SSL schedule for this years can be found here: [RoboCup 2025 Schedule - Official](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/0/d/1uNMfJM_ZOfLf-vYniD9r5… As the tournament days are quite packed, the technical challenges are currently planned to be primarily in the morning of the 16th. Also the slots for the Demo matches against Junior have been picked. Both of them will happen after each other on Saturday between 17:00 - 18:00. If you have any open questions, feel free to reach out to the OC/TC, See you in Salvador! David and Tobi, on behalf of the SSL committee PS: The local organization is also sending regular newsletters with important and interesting notes about the tournament and everything around it. Therefore please have a look for them. In case you didn't receive them, here are the ones, which have already been sent: [Newsletter #1](https://drive.google.com/file/d/149odDpmagt9dIJpBhQ9mJ2No8ISgJJYf/view?usp=sharing) [Newsletter #2](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1L1fcfvUgY-oj6_XfEETS3m0EzppYhP8-/view)

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