- RoboCup-small - lists.robocup.org

RoboCup Early Visa Invitation Letters
by 2024＠robocup.org 22 Jan '24

22 Jan '24

Dear RoboCuppers, We are very much looking forward to inviting all of you to Eindhoven, The Netherlands for RoboCup 2024! To allow more teams to join RoboCup 2024, we offer early visa invitation letters. Participants that require a visa to join RoboCup in The Netherlands may apply for an early visa invitation letter. This letter allows for making an earlier appointment at an embassy to request a visa, rather than only after completing registration. There are some constraints on who can receive a visa invitation letter. You can find the details, as well as the request form, on the RoboCup 2024 website: https://2024.robocup.org/?page_id=2998 We hope to see you at RoboCup 2024! Best regards, RoboCup 2024 Organisation 2024(a)robocup.org <mailto:2024@robocup.org>

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Changes for the Small Size League in 2024
by Tobias Heineken 17 Jan '24

17 Jan '24

Happy New Year! As we start the preparations for RoboCup 2024, we would like to inform the league of the main upcoming changes for this year's competition, based on the discussions from the last Open OC/TC meeting at the end of RoboCup Bordeaux. We also want to give the league a quick heads-up that the Team Qualification Material Submission deadline for this year's RoboCup is February 13th. The CMT for submitting the (E)TDPs is now open and more information can be found at the qualification website <https://ssl.robocup.org/robocup-2024-qualification/>. The (Updated) Qualification process Starting with RoboCup 2024, the SSL will limit the number of teams participating in the competition. With the expected field setup, this limit is 12 teams in Division B and 8 in Division A. If more space becomes available, more slots in Division B will open up. To determine the selected teams, the TC/OC will rank all based on their qualification video, initial TDP submissionand feedback given during the review process. The TDP will generally be given preference over the qualification video & review feedback. For Division A, the 8 slots available will be decided using the ranking system cited above. If not all slots of Div A are filled, the TC/OC will invite teams from Division B until all slots are used. For Division B, there will be 8 slots that will be filled using the ranking system and 4 slots that will be filled randomly. This will ensure that new teams will have a chance of participating in the competition. All teams that did not get a slot in Division A are considered for Division B. Qualified teams that are not invited according to this method end up on the waiting list, which again is sorted based on the ranking described above. The TC/OC will inform a team “You’re on the waiting list, your position is #2”. If a slot opens up, we will contact the teams in that order to find a team that is still interested in coming to the RoboCup. This is additional to the “qualified / conditionally qualified” system we are currently using. The requirements for (E)TDPs and Qualification Video will also not change. Remember that teams regularly drop out (“withdrawn”) or don’t get qualified (“not qualified”), so there is a realistic chance a team on the waiting list can get invited. If you are directly qualified and not on the waiting list, please notify TC/OC immediatelyif you wish to withdraw so we can start communicating with teams on the waiting list. Number of robots for Division A In Bordeaux, the number of robots for division A was 11 and only two teams managed to actually play with 11 robots. With that in mind, and also wanting to provide more opportunities for teams in Division B to join Division A, we are making modifications to the allowed number of robots in Div A. During thegroup phase, games will be played with 8 robots on each side unless both teams agree to play with 11. And during the knockout phase, all games will be played with 11 robots per team.We still want to incentivize teams to play with 11 robots, but we do understand that this can be hard, especially for teams coming from Division B. Rule changes One major upcoming rule change is regarding the robot substitution process. Currently, a robot substitution is almost free, and a team can use almost unlimited time to do such a substitution. In RoboCup Japan (2017) we started the automatic robot substitutions <https://robocup-ssl.github.io/ssl-rules/sslrules.html#_robot_substitution>, but in its current implementation, flagging a robot substitution has no consequences.This can lead to diverting the focus of the development from obtaining stable hardware, and can cause excessive downtime during gameplay. The rule change imposes some consequence to performing a robot substitution. We have not concluded our discussions, but are considering the following options (or a combination of these): * A time limit on the robot substitution (either similar to the timeouts, or individually for each substitution event) * Limiting the number of substitutions * Consequences after a certain amount of substitutions o Examples include losing a timeout, getting a yellow card, a free kick, etc. Please stay attentive to our emails for any more announcements of rule changes. Technical challenges We have planned some exciting technical challenges for this year! The details are not ready yet, but we would like to give an overview so teams can start preparing for them. Black & White Hulls We have received a lot of feedback that for the audience, it is hard to distinguish between teams since most teams use black hulls. Therefore, we are proposing a challenge in which teams will have to show how they will quickly change their hulls’ colors between black and white. Team vs. Team Passing Challenge We want to extend last year’s passing challenge to involve other teams! This year, the passing challenge will involve two teams, each one trying to pass the ball to themselves. We are excited to see some ball stealing action and what strategies teams come up for this! Please direct all inquiries to the Small Size League Organizing Committee: rc-ssl-oc(a)lists.robocup.org <mailto:rc-ssl-oc@lists.robocup.org> Thank you!

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RoboCup 2024 Small Size League Call for Participation
by Carla Cosenza 21 Dec '23

21 Dec '23

Hello! The Small Size League committee is glad to invite you to participate in the RoboCup 2024! Below you can find important information about the competition and qualification. Location and dates RoboCup Eindhoven 2024 Small Size League July 17-21, 2024 https://2024.robocup.org/ About RoboCup RoboCup is an international scientific initiative with the goal to advance the state of the art of intelligent robots. When established in 1997, the original mission was to field a team of robots capable of winning against the human soccer World Cup champions by 2050. About the Small Size League The RoboCup Small Size League is a part of the RoboCup Research Federation focused on multi-agent coordination and control. Teams currently compete in 11 vs. 11 soccer matches (6 vs. 6 in Div. B). The robots must fit within an 18 cm diameter circle and must be no higher than 15 cm. The robots play soccer with an orange golf ball on a green carpeted field that is about 12 m long by 9 m wide. About the qualification To qualify for the competition, each team must submit a Team Description Paper and a video by February 13, 2024. More information on the qualification requirements and processes are located on the website. 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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Call for Interest: RoboCup German Open 2024 - Small Size League
by Nicolai Ommer 20 Nov '23

20 Nov '23

Call for Interest: RoboCup German Open 2024 - Small Size League Location: Kassel, Germany Date: April 17 - 21, 2024 Website: https://robocup.de/german-open/ The German Open of the RoboCup - open to national and international teams - is scheduled to take place again in 2024. The event takes place from the 17th to the 21st of April 2024 at the Kassel trade fair. We want to attract national attention with strong media performance. 700-800 participants are expected. The event attracts many visitors every year, including students interested in technology, robotics and AI. If you are interested in participating in the Small Size League, you will greatly help us planning this event by submitting the following poll or by sending me a short message as soon as possible. https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdG9kF5-ETsCbZ0hHP1LksOaf72MvGAXB6… Submission-Deadline: November 24th 2023 Best, Nicolai Ommer Regional Committee Chair of the Small Size League

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PhD scholarships @ Western Sydney Uni, Australia
by Oliver Obst 10 Aug '23

10 Aug '23

Dear all, We have a new round of PhD scholarships at Western Sydney, open for domestic and international candidates who can start next January. If you are interested to work with me in robotics, in particular around one of these areas: - robotic teams and learning of strategies, reinforcement learning, or real-time decision making - learning-based locomotion and whole body control for walking (biped or quadruped) robots - assistive robotics or have prior RoboCup experience please consider applying. Please check the criteria and apply on this page here: https://www.westernsydney.edu.au/schools/grs/scholarships/main_round_schola… If you do apply, make sure to contact me in advance. Cheers Oliver -- Oliver Obst, Associate Professor Centre for Research in Mathematics and Data Science Western Sydney University http://oliver.obst.eu/

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RoboCup Brazil Open 2023
by Patricia Vergara 27 Jul '23

27 Jul '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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RoboCup 2023 Results
by Selina Zwerver 19 Jul '23

19 Jul '23

Hi everyone, We want to thank you all for participating in this year’s RoboCup! It was amazing to see you all again, and I hope you enjoyed the event as much as we did. With this email we would like to congratulate you all with your results. We know that it hasn’t been easy to work on your robots in the past years, but all of you made it to Bordeaux and were able to play some matches! Below are the results. Please let us know if we have made a mistake somewhere! Division A - Tournament Rank Team 1 TIGERs Mannheim 2 ZJUNlict 3 Immortals 4 KIKS 5 ER-Force 5 RoboDragons 7 RoboTeam Twente Division B - Tournament Rank Team 1 RobôCIn 2 luhbots Soccer 3 Ri-one 4 UBC Thunderbots 5 ITAndroids 5 RoboJackets 5 RoboFEI 5 RoboIME 9 The-A-Team 9 NAMeC 9 OrcaBOT 9 Sysmic Robotics Awards Excellence award TIGERs Mannheim Best (E)TDP TIGERs Mannheim Open source award RoboTeam Twente Chip Pass Technical Challenge First Place TIGERs Mannheim Ball Placement Technical Challenge First Place RobôCIn League photo We would like to remind everyone that the league photo can be found here <https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/1-VW7KR5tBn-sR5t2CdVwUTIj3VUmU4rw> ! RoboCup 2024 For those of you who did not receive the news during the RoboCup, RoboCup 2024 will take place from July 17-21 in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. We will update you as soon as we have more information about, for example, the set-up dates. We hope to see you all there! Kind regards, Selina Zwerver RoboCup Small Size League | Organizing Committee

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RoboCup 2023 – Open Source Award Submission RobôCIn
by José Victor Silva Cruz 05 Jul '23

05 Jul '23

Hi, everyone! We are proud to announce a series of repositories that we plan to submit at this year's open-source. Hopefully they will help grow our category here at RoboCup. RobôCIn's Plans for Future Software Development *rSoccer*: https://github.com/robocin/rSoccer - Is an open-source framework to study Reinforcement Learning for SSL; - Related Documents: - Exploring Reinforcement Learning in Path Planning for Omnidirectional Robot Soccer - https://www.cin.ufpe.br/~tg/2022-2/tg_EC/TG_jvsc.pdf - DyLam: A dynamic reward weighting method for reinforcement learning policy gradient algorithms: - https://repositorio.ufpe.br/handle/123456789/46630 - Evaluation of time limits in reinforcement learning applied to robot soccer simulation - https://www.cin.ufpe.br/~tg/2020-2/TG_EC/tg_jnds.pdf *project-unification*: https://github.com/robocin/project-unification This project aims to demonstrate the use of the soccer-common framework ( https://github.com/robocin/soccer-common), developed by RobôCIn and used in the RoboCup SSL and IEEE VSS categories. Also, the repository serves as a starting point to the team’s new developers and teams that want to start strategies on SSL. Usage examples: - MatheusPaixaoG: https://github.com/MatheusPaixaoG/project-unification - matheuslafayette: https://github.com/matheuslafayette/projeto-seletivo-robocin - agaf2: https://github.com/agaf2/project-unification - acrucha: https://github.com/acrucha/project-unification - caiomvfc: https://github.com/caiovmfc/Seletiva-RoboCin-VSS-cvmfc *robocin-cpp:* https://github.com/robocin/robocin-cpp - It is a library heavily inspired by abseil owned by Google, and seeks to extract what worked well from soccer-common, implementing software engineering best practices and modern C++ with a README-by-folder based documentation. It provides the core library for our next team's robotics applications. - Floating-point comparison; - Angular/geometric operations; - In the long term it will be like libsrc in 2D for our team. *protocols:* https://github.com/robocin/protocols The protobufs used by the competition are widely dispersed in the repositories that require them, making it necessary to copy and paste the files that are currently being used in the category. Thus, the protocols used are highly duplicated in the RoboCup SSL softwares, but also in the team’s strategy softwares. In this context, we propose a single repository containing the protocols used by as well as installation guidelines for various programming languages, such as Java, C++, Python, etc. *robocin-ines:* https://github.com/joseviccruz/robocin-ines, https://github.com/uandersonricardo/robocin-ines-server, https://github.com/uandersonricardo/robocin-ines-webui robocin-ines provides a base framework for architecting robotic applications. This set of repositories comes as an optimization of our current software (ssl-unification), providing a microservices-based framework which: 1. Enables the use of different programming languages; 2. Uses the ZeroMQ framework to communicate services with latency below 1ms; 3. Defines a visualization on the Web, providing better development simplicity; However, this final structure is not yet finalized and, as a way to validate the technologies, scope, and robustness of the system, the SSL VAR was developed as an MVP of this repository. SSL VAR is a match recording system, which allows the viewing of the match in real time, as well as the analysis of past plays through replay at a given timestamp or according to a given event in the match, such as a foul, penalty, or goal. In this way, it allows the human referee to analyze a past play and check whether his decision and also the decisions of the automatic referees were correct or not. The ultimate goal of this repository is to provide a base structure for organizing new SSL teams using microservices, and to extend the life and maintenance of our current software. Best regards, RobôCIn.

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RoboCup 2023 - Open Source Award Submission RoboFEI
by João Victor Aguiar 05 Jul '23

05 Jul '23

Dear SSL community, RoboFEI would like to submit our hardware and software works for the open-source award. We are happy to say that we have released all the mechanics, electronics, AI, and firmware for this year. Regarding mechanics, the new robot's generation is fully released on our GitLab (https://gitlab.com/robofei/ssl/ssl-mechanics). The project aims for modularization that will help robot maintenance and assembly. In electronics, both the main and kick boards have been changed aiming for modularization, besides the fact that the team replaced the FPGA with an STM microcontroller to modernize our robot, and you can see everything here in the link (https://gitlab.com/robofei/ssl/Electronics_v2). Besides that, our new firmware is released on our GitLab too ( https://gitlab.com/robofei/ssl/Electronics_v2). About the software, our ongoing research of multi-robot path-planning is fully released on our GitLab (https://gitlab.com/leo_costa/RobotNavigation). Best regards, João Victor RoboFEI

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RoboCup 2023 - Open Source Award Submission ER-Force
by Mike Schmidt 04 Jul '23

04 Jul '23

Dear Small Size League. ER-Force would like to submit their current hardware and software framework as well as its autoref for the open source award. [1, 2, 3] A short summary: The hardware project reflects the current state of the ER-Force robots, i.e. the new robot generation used by our team during this RoboCup. The hardware is designed in EAGLE (electronics) and Inventor (mechanics). The electronics section contains prebuilt manufacturer files (Gerber) as well as schematics as PDF, the mechanics part is depicted in assembly drawings. The software framework reflects the open-source simulator as well as some low level algorithms such as our path planning. The software framework is written in C++ and Qt. Finally, our open-source projects include our well-known autoref, which is used by the league for many years. Best regards, Mike ER-Force [1] https://github.com/robotics-erlangen/hardware [2] https://github.com/robotics-erlangen/framework [3] https://github.com/robotics-erlangen/autoref

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RoboCup 2023 – Open Source Award Submission TIGERs Mannheim
by Andre R. 04 Jul '23

04 Jul '23

Dear SSL-Community, as in the past years we are very happy to announce our entry for the Open Source Award. The usual one-stop shop to get it all was updated: https://github.com/TIGERs-Mannheim We are doing a complete and full release of everything we have, including electronics, mechanics, firmware, our full AI, and some awesome new tools. Here is a brief description of what has changed. Mechanics: The dribbler dampening and dribbling bar have changed again to improve traction on the ball. These are mostly material changes. The axes of the sub-wheels changed to be more robust. The release includes the full robot mechanics. Inventor CAD files, but also a STEP file of the full robot. Firmware: Dribbler current control has been improved near zero velocity. Interface to the robot's raspberry pi has been improved with new messages and feedback of detected balls. The release also includes our wireless protocol and base station firmware. Software (AI): The heart and brain of our team, the central control software "Sumatra". Of course, compatible with the simulation protocol. So you can test your AI against ours locally. Pass finding has been largely improved and now contains a dynamic learning component. Also watch out for some more serious dribbling moves which will make you sweat 😉 RobotPi: The software for ball detection running on a Raspberry Pi 3A+ on each of our robots. Most of the color blob detection and thresholding has been rewritten and is parallelized via multi-threading. The RPi uses only around 50% of its CPU now. TIGERs CLAV (Cut Lengthy Audio/Video): This is an C++ ImGui based application able to cut video files based on an SSL gamelog. You can synchronize multiple videos and gamelogs with individual markers and the tool can then cut out non-running stages. This tool is still quite new and may not support every video format, but nonetheless it is already a great help to preprocess videos from matches. Oh and it can create a status overlay video for your videos, too (similar to the status board). 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 2023 - Open Source Award Submission RoboTeam Twente
by Emy Ganzeboom | RoboTeam Twente 04 Jul '23

04 Jul '23

Dear SSL community, Hereby, RoboTeam Twente would like to submit our projects for the Open Source Award. RoboTeam Twente Wiki <https://wiki.roboteamtwente.nl/> RoboTeam Twente AI Software <https://github.com/RoboTeamTwente/roboteam> RoboTeam Twente Embedded <https://github.com/RoboTeamTwente/roboteam_microcontroller5.0> RoboTeam Twente AutoRef <https://github.com/RoboTeamTwente/roboteam_autoref> High Speed USB Library for STM32 <https://github.com/RoboTeamTwente/Basestation/tree/feature/custom_usb_class> Chat-TDP <https://github.com/emielsteerneman/TDP> Our Wiki provides all the mechanical and electrical designs of our robots. Furthermore, it contains the theoretical background and additional explanations about our AI and control software. On our Github you can find our new path planning within our AI code, as well as our innovative dribbler ball-sensor code (see this year's ETDP <https://ssl.robocup.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/2023_ETDP_RoboTeam_Twent…> ). This year we created an AutoRef, allowing for a majority vote between all AutoRefs. This software is under active development, but our AutoRef will most likely be used during RoboCup 2023. Next to that, we developed a high speed USB library compatible with our STM32 chip. This results in an enhanced stability when connecting USB devices to the STM32F676ZI. With minor modifications, this is also suitable for other STM chips. Lastly, our latest innovation is our very own Chat-GPT, containing all information on all the (E)TDPs within the SSL. Just ask your question, and the answer will be provided. This Chat-TDP is currently still under construction, but great progress has already been made and we feel like this could be beneficial for all teams within SSL. Thank you! -- Met vriendelijke groeten / Kind regards, *Emy Ganzeboom* Team Manager | Control Engineer Phone: LinkedIn: Website: +31 (0)6 21 37 45 87 Emy Ganzeboom <https://nl.linkedin.com/in/emy-ganzeboom-8a9b47193> www.roboteamtwente.nl Do you want to support our team? Please take a look at our crowdfunding page <https://www.steunutwente.nl/project/roboteam-twente-2023>!

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RoboCup 2023 - Open Source Award Submission luhbots Soccer
by Sebastian Knackstedt 03 Jul '23

03 Jul '23

Hello SmallSizeLeague, luhbots Soccer would like to submit our current hardware and software work for the Open Source Award. Links: Hardware: CAD Files for our Robot <https://github.com/luhsoccer/luhsoccer_hardware> Electronics: Schematics for all our PCBs from the robot and our basestation. <https://github.com/luhsoccer/luhsoccer_electronics> Firmware: The code for the eletronics. Include the fireware for the mulitple MCUs on the robots and the basestation. <https://github.com/luhsoccer/luhsoccer_firmware> Software: The framework to control the robots. <https://github.com/luhsoccer/luhsoccer_baguette> A short summary of the projects: The CAD files are designed via Autodesk Inventor and can be opened accordingly. The Schematics and PCB Files are designed via KiCAD 7.0. The Firmware is completely written in Rust and designed for the RP2040 (the robots) and the ATSAM4E (the basestation). The software is written in C++ and contains various python bindings which can be used to develop a high level strategy around the software. Documentation is contained via Doxygen and can be built seperatly. Greetings, Sebastian Knackstedt, luhbots Soccer -- SebastianKnackstedt Leitung Software Soccer | luhbots sebastian.knackstedt(a)luhbots.de <mailto:sebastian.knackstedt@luhbots.de> luhbots-hannover.de <//luhbots-hannover.de> Appelstrasse 11, 30167 Hannover

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Final preparations for RoboCup
by Carla Cosenza 03 Jul '23

03 Jul '23

Hello! As RoboCup approaches, we need some more information from all teams to prepare the venue. As some are aware, some parts of Bordeaux are having a curfew enforced due to the protests that are happening. We would like for teams to inform us where they are staying so that we can modify the schedule if the curfew persists during the competition. So please have one member of your team send your hotel location to Selina (selinazwerver(a)gmail.com), through discord or email. We would like to also inform everyone that if the curfew persists, we will have modifications in the schedule so please check it regularly. We also need to know how many people are coming per team, in order to organize the tables. So please send the amount of people coming to the competition from your team to Selina TODAY (selinazwerver(a)gmail.com), through discord or email. Finally, we would like to remind everyone that tomorrow is the first set up day. We cannot guarantee that the cameras will be working first thing tomorrow, but we are working on getting them up and running as soon as possible. The venue should be open at 8am and it would be ideal to have teams here for easier communication. Thank you very much and we will see you all soon! Carla Cosenza RoboCup Small Size League | Organizing Committee

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RoboCup 2023 – Open Source Award Submission RoboJackets
by Alex Sohrab 03 Jul '23

03 Jul '23

Hello SSL community, RoboJackets would like to submit our open source work for this SSL award. Printed Circuit Boards <https://github.com/RoboJackets/robocup-pcb> RRT Path Planning <https://github.com/RoboJackets/rrt> GUI, High Level Planning, and Strategy Software <https://github.com/RoboJackets/robocup-software> FreeRTOS firmware <https://github.com/RoboJackets/robocup-firmware> All information regarding documentation can be found within the repositories. RoboJackets has made all parts of our development open source (RobotCAD is currently unavailable due to GrabCAD being down, and we are searching for alternatives). Some of the main innovations involve practical applications of ROS2 for software and FreeRTOS for on-board robot control. Another goal of ours this year was increased documentation: for example software documentation can be found at this website <https://rj-rc-software.readthedocs.io/en/latest/>. Thank you, RoboJackets, Georgia Tech Kasra Alexander Sohrab

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RoboCup 2023: One Week Update
by Nicolai Ommer 24 Jun '23

24 Jun '23

Dear all, As RoboCup is starting in approximately one week (!) we would like to update you on the final topics. Radio Frequency Requirements Please submit your radio frequency requirements <https://forms.gle/SJudXbUZ2wQBA9ND9> by June 28th so that we can assign frequencies to teams and clarify any issues with the LOC. You can have a look at the previous year's assignment <https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1hRFL8HIk0Z2CVAxTixg-ktKgxDcJ24r7Orh…> to get an idea of what other teams used, but note that there are more teams this year. We’ll do our best to assign frequencies in a fair manner. Tasks for new teams We would like to remind new teams that there are some things you have to do in order to play matches. An overview is given here <https://ssl.robocup.org/joining-the-small-size-league/>. Please make sure you have performed all actions as soon as possible, but at the latest before the competition starts. TC signup The RoboCup Small Size League 2023 Technical Challenges are the Chip Pass Challenge and the Ball Placement Challenge. Please sign up your team to participate in this form <https://forms.gle/dGcoXAeZgxp9XFLA8>. More information about the TC and their rules here <https://ssl.robocup.org/robocup-2023-technical-challenges/>. Deadline is June 28th. Open source submissions The RoboCup Small Size League Open Source Award goes to a team that has demonstrated a commitment to sharing and supporting their software and hardware designs for the benefit and advancement of the RoboCup community. If you would like to take a shot at the award, you have to send an email to the Small Size League Mailing list with the following information: - Link(s) to the open source project - Link(s) to any related documentation for using the open source project - A short description of the project and documentation submitted and their innovation and relevance to the RoboCup Small Size League. The subject of the email should be “RoboCup 2023 - Open Source Award Submission <Your Team Name>”. Late submissions will not be considered. More information about the open source award can be found here <https://ssl.robocup.org/robocup-2023-awards/>. Referee quiz Similar to last year, we have created a referee quiz. This quiz is designed to improve the notoriously poor quality of many of our referees. Each team needs to be able to perform the impartial roles (referee, assistant, game controller operator and vision expert) for matches where they are not playing themselves. Finishing the rules quiz correctly will be necessary for that, and only people who finish the quiz are allowed to perform the impartial roles. Please fill in the quiz before the start of the competition . The quiz contains some open questions. Please try to explain as best as possible how you would handle the described situation. It is to give us an indication of how teams would act. The OC will provide the preferred course of action on the first day of the competition. The quiz can be found here <https://forms.gle/35fJVy49j6QkefEG8>. A useful reference would be the rule book <https://robocup-ssl.github.io/ssl-rules/sslrules.pdf>. ETDP posters All division A teams are required to bring along a poster that illustrates the content of the paper. The poster must be of A0 size and will be hung at the RoboCup venue. Please remember to design and print this poster. Groups We’ve drawn the groups as outlined in our previous email. The results for Division A are: Group A: TIGERs (GermanyA) Robodragons (JapanA) Roboteam-Twente (Netherlands) KIKS (JapanB) Group B: ZJUNlict (ChinaA) SRC (ChinaB) ER-Force (GermanyB) Immortals (Iran) The results for Division B are: Group A: RoboCIn (BrazilA) Ri-one (Japan) The-A-Team (USA) Group B: luhbots-Soccer (Germany) UBC-Thunderbots (Canada) OrcaBOT (Thailand) Group C: RoboIME (BrazilB) RoboJackets (USA) Sysmic-Robotics (Chile) Group D: RoboFEI (BrazilC) NAMEc (France) ITAndroids (BrazilD) And in case ZJUNlict cannot make it to France, the alternative group in Divisions A are: Group A: TIGERs (GermanyA) Roboteam-Twente (Netherlands) Robodragons (JapanA) Dummy2 (Dummy) Group B: ER-Force (GermanyB) SRC (China) KIKS (JapanB) Immortals (Iran) We will decide on which of the Division A groups are used on the 5th, right after the open source presentations, with the information available to TC/OC at that time. Also note that SRC has withdrawn their participation, so the matches against them will be skipped. Reminder: Preference to play with walls Please remember to choose your preference towards playing with walls in this form <https://forms.gle/eeWT9Z8FQBJVaTmH6> (regardless of your preference). So far, 13 teams have voted. We have extended the deadline to June 28th to give the other teams a bit more time. Heads Up: Redesigned Game Controller UI If you have not noticed yet: The UI of the SSL Game Controller has been completely redesigned. We strongly encourage you to have a look and get familiar with it, so that you are not surprised in the first match. https://github.com/RoboCup-SSL/ssl-game-controller See you all in Bordeaux soon! Nicolai In behalf of the SSL committee

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Wifi spectrum enforcement at RoboCup 2023
by UBC Thunderbots 18 Jun '23

18 Jun '23

Dear OC and TC’s, We hope this email finds you all in good health. We are concerned about the enforcement of 3.2.5 Radio Communication for the Small Size League at Bordeaux this year. Thunderbots communicate with their robots using WiFi and last year, due to the uncontrolled WiFi spectrum at the venue, we encountered significant network congestion and latencies. Despite being assigned a specific WiFi channel we could use at competition, we found that many participants in the competition started WiFi hotspots that occupied our channel. We are wondering and hoping the organizers can implement stricter enforcement of assigned WiFi channels in Bordeaux this year, as it was done in Sydney 2019. This would greatly help our gameplay and naturally be greatly appreciated. Let us know if this is possible and whether there are any planned strategies for the enforcement of WiFi channel assignments this year. Cheers, Yichen Zhou, Team Captain Arun Balumunari, Software Lead --- *UBC Thunderbots* Faculty of Applied Science The University of British Columbia | Vancouver Campus robocup(a)ece.ubc.ca | http://ubcthunderbots.ca/

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Tournament structure, group seeding and preference to play with walls
by Tobias Heineken 14 Jun '23

14 Jun '23

Dear SSL-Community, RoboCup 2023 will start in 3 weeks, so we wanted to give you some updates regarding playing with walls and the grouping. Playing with walls This year, we will offer all teams to play their matches with walls. To allow for some preparation, the preference to play with walls can not be changed arbitrarily: We ask all teams to announce their preference till June 23rd (anywhere on earth)through this form <https://forms.gle/eeWT9Z8FQBJVaTmH6>. The responses are published <https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1Kb2voTSFtIJvoxmoRSsCpZO-80mZgIoPBiBJQQCohj…>immediately. The preference is binding for all matches in the group phase. It can be changed once between the group and the elimination phase through this form <https://forms.gle/oNAEMGAjE77TcSCH8>and is then binding for the remaining games. A match is played with walls, if both teams have announced their preference for wall games. Playing with walls underlies the following rule changes: * Rule 6 - Ball Leaves The Field <https://robocup-ssl.github.io/ssl-rules/sslrules.html#_ball_leaves_the_field>does not apply * The field size is increase by the field boundary - ssl-vision will send a Geometry with adjusted field sizes and a boundary width of zero Tournament Structure & Group seeding We have finished the schedule and the seeding for the upcoming Robocup. You can find the schedule at https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1EUjOuGdRLxptcESywCAKdruRATmy2j6ezu6… <https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1EUjOuGdRLxptcESywCAKdruRATmy2j6ezu6…>. Division A will play a 8 player competition, with 2 groups of 4 teams each, followed by a double-elimination knockout tournament, similar to the competition in 2019. Compared to 2019, the matches of 'winner of each group against 4th of the other group' are canceled, and the winner of the group is assumed to win this, and the last place of the group is assumed to lose that match. As a result, 1st of each group skips Upper Round 1 / 2 (which now only 2nd vs 3rd each) and starts in the upper semifinals. The 4th of each group starts in the Lower Tournament. Division B will play a 12 player competition, with 4 groups of 3 teams each, followed by a single-elimination knockout tournament. Similar to 2019 and LARC 2022, but different to Robocup 2022 in Bangkok. This also means 90 mins per match in Division B (was 120 mins). This is necessary to accommodate the increased number of participants. Please be prepared that the schedule is going to be tight. As in Division A, the winners of each group get to skip the first round of the knockout stage as a reward for winning their groups. The Repositoryhttps://github.com/RoboCup-SSL/ssl-grouping <https://github.com/RoboCup-SSL/ssl-grouping>is already updated to include the newly seeded teams. As we are going to draw both a two group and a four group competition, I modified the software to first take the number of groups as a first parameter, followed by the two random seeds. We also disabled country locking in Division A (too few distinct countries participating), but enabled it in Division B except for Brazil. So if you're competing in Division B and are from a different country than Brazil, you are promised not to play another team from your country in the group stage. We are going to use the random numbers given by the following link: https://www.random.org/integers/?num=6&min=1&max=123456&col=5&base=10&forma… <https://www.random.org/integers/?num=6&min=1&max=123456&col=5&base=10&forma…> Please note that this link does not work yet (to make sure I didn't pick some random numbers I liked best), because it will use the pre-generated random numbers from 24th of June and will only work on and after 24th of June. As soon as the numbers are available, the link will create 6 numbers. The two most left numbers are going to be used to draw the division A groups (with `ln -f teamsA.txt teams.txt; ./grouping 2 <firstSeed> <secondSeed>`) and the second pair to draw the division B groups (with `ln -f teamsA.txt teams.txt; ./grouping 4 <thirdSeed> <fourthSeed>`). TC/OC has been made aware that both teams from China are currently experiencing visa issues for France. To avoid the issue where the top seed from one of the two divA groups is missing (and the group is as a result much weaker) the third pair will be used to draw groups where ZJU is replaced by a dummy team (in seed 3), ER-Force is moving up to pool 1, and KIKs is moving up to pool 2. If you want to challenge the seeding for the competition, you have to do this before the groups are drawn, i.e. before random.org published the random numbers for the 24th. As the earth is round and time zones are unpredictable, send your complaints on or before 22nd AoE. See you in France!

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New auto-referee from RoboTeam Twente
by Nicolai Ommer 04 May '23

04 May '23

Dear SSL community, RoboTeam Twente announced a new auto-referee implementation that they are currently working on: https://github.com/RoboTeamTwente/roboteam_autoref They plan to support at least a subset of the rule detections that the other two auto-referees from ER-Force and TIGERs support. The ssl-game-controller is already using a majority vote on most rule infringements reported by the auto-referees, so a third implementation will improve the robustness further. The new implementation will support the existing two auto-referees during RoboCup 2023 under close supervision by the technical committee. Best, Nicolai In behalf of the SSL TC committee

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SSL 2023 Technical Challenges
by Lucas Cavalcanti 18 Apr '23

18 Apr '23

Dear SSL-Community, This year we will have two technical challenges, the chip pass challenge and the ball placement. Chip Pass Similar to the pass endurance Hardware Challenge from 2021, the goal is to perform as many passes as possible within a certain time. And there will be more points if the ball is chipped. Ball Placement Similar to previous years, only teams that never participated in Division A before may attend it. We will not require attendance, though we strongly encourage teams from Division B to do so. Both challenge rules are available on the SSL website: https://ssl.robocup.org/robocup-2023-technical-challenges/ See you all in Bordeaux!

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RoboCup 2023 Preliminary Results
by Carla Cosenza 07 Mar '23

07 Mar '23

Dear Small Size League, All teams should have their preliminary qualification results by now, so please check your contact email address. If you are conditionally qualified do not hesitate to contact the OC for more clarification, if necessary. But please do not wait until close to the deadline! Best regards, Carla Cosenza RoboCup Small Size League | Organizing Committee

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Peer reviews available
by Selina Zwerver 24 Feb '23

24 Feb '23

Dear all, Thank you all for submitting your peer reviews! The reviews are now available for the authors to see in the conference manager. We will discuss everyone’s qualification soon, and send personal emails regarding qualification status *before the 7th of March*. Kind regards, Selina Zwerver RoboCup Small Size League | Organizing Committee

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RoboCup 2023 Small Size League Peer Review Reminder
by Selina Zwerver 16 Feb '23

16 Feb '23

Hello everyone! We would like to remind everyone that the deadline for submitting your peer reviews is next week Tuesday, February 21st, anywhere on earth. More information on the process, including examples of excellent papers, is located on the website <https://ssl.robocup.org/robocup-2023-qualification/>. If you have any questions about the reviews, please don’t hesitate to contact us, either by emailing rc-ssl-oc(a)lists.robocup.org or sending a message in our Discord. Kind regards, Selina Zwerver RoboCup Small Size League | Organizing Committee

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National Robotics Festival - Portugal
by Patricia Vergara 09 Feb '23

09 Feb '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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Peer review is now available!
by Carla Cosenza 04 Feb '23

04 Feb '23

Hello! Peer reviews are now open for submission in the conference tool! One member from each team should have received an email entitled "Peer review". The submission of the reviews must be done through that account in the conference tool. Each team has been assigned 3 papers to review. We would like to remind everyone that the deadline for peer reviews is February 21st, 2023, anywhere on Earth and that the failure to submit this will result in disqualification from the competition. We would also like to point out that peer review is a very important part of the qualification process, so please do invest time on it and write thorough assessment. The review has one question that only the OCs / TCs will have access to, so please feel free to use that field to voice any concerns you do not want to share with teams. For any questions, please email the OCs. Best regards, Carla Cosenza RoboCup Small Size League | Organizing Committee

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