- RoboCup-small - lists.robocup.org

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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RoboCup 2025 - Open Source Award Submission TIGERs Mannheim
by Felix Weinmann 20 Jun '25

20 Jun '25

Dear Small Size League, we are proud to present our 2025 open source award submission: The vision processor! https://github.com/TIGERs-Mannheim/vision-processor The vision processor aims to be a drop-in replacement for SSL-Vision. The shape based blob detector and decentralized software architecture is intended to minimize setup time and improve detection rates in uneven illumination conditions. Since the initial announcement on the SSL Discord 5 months ago, multiple tournaments have been completed using vision processor exclusively. Tigertastic greetings, TIGERs Mannheim

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RC2025: Junior Demo Matches
by David Brand 16 Jun '25

16 Jun '25

Hello! After the matches last year between TIGERs on behalf of the SSL and the Junior Soccer LightWeight and Open Leagues received positive attention and feedback, we want to host the matches this year again, deepening our cooperation to further increase knowledge transfer between both leagues. Since the junior teams will consist of robots from multiple teams again, we want to prove that the SSL can play with robots from multiple teams on a shared team as well. After a first test during the German Open ([Lifestream of the match](https://www.youtube.com/live/__ASDKObXNY?si=B_cGATAb3sl5xPfe&t=3087)), where TIGERs and ER-Force gave their best to split the responsibility on the field, we want to expand the circle of competing teams. Therefore we are currently looking for teams that are open to the challenge and would like to join the matches. As the junior bots are usually a bit more fragile than the SSL bots, all competing robots must be limited to the following values: - Max Robot speed: 2.0 - Max Robot acceleration: 2.0 - Max Ball speed: 2.5 In addition to that, the use of chip kicks is strictly forbidden.Disabling the chip kicks in hardware is strongly encouraged and preferred, but disabling it in software is also fine. To ensure that these limits are not violated, each SSL team will have to demonstrate compliance to these limits beforehand. The matches will take place on the main Div B field. Therefore, the ruleset used will be similar to the SSL Div B ruleset. As all junior bots will get equipped with vision patterns, and the GC will control the SSL bots and coordinate the matches. Expect some adaptations to improve the flow of the game by the refs or GCO, you should not need to adapt your AI or hardware beyond the safety limitations. Since the schedules of the involved leagues are still being finalized, we do not have a specific time for the demo yet. However, I expect it to take place on Friday or Saturday. Since we will need the main Div B field anyway, there is no need to worry about scheduling conflicts with other matches. However, since tournaments never run as expected, you can always withdraw from the challenge. If you have any questions regarding the matches or would like to join the matches feel free to reach out to the OC. Thanks, David. ------------ RoboCup Small Size League | OC Member

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Shared Radio Interest Form
by Will Stuckey 15 Jun '25

15 Jun '25

Hi Everyone, If your team is using 5GHz or 6GHz WiFi for robot control please fill out this survey. https://forms.gle/93JZhJzZCVa8ce1x6. The TC will be offering shared WiFi on the Division A and practice fields and would like to find teams interested in a shared WiFi scrimmage. Thanks, Will Stuckey

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RC2025 Cargo Shipment
by David Brand 12 Jun '25

12 Jun '25

Hi, We want to forward the request from the Local Organization: The company responsible for Cargo is talking with Brazilian customs to solve all the procedures to receive the team's payloads as quickly as possible. To accelerate this process, they are asking teams who contacted them to prove their registration to RoboCup 2025. In case you plan to ship your robots beforehand and already contacted the cargo company, please follow the request. In case you won't use the shipment option, but rather take the robots with you, you can ignore the request. Thanks, David. ------------ RoboCup Small Size League | OC Member

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Technical Challenge - Obstacle Avoidance
by Emiel Steerneman 08 Jun '25

08 Jun '25

Hello! The Technical Committee has finished working out the details for the Obstacle Avoidance challenge - DivB only. Please find the rules on our website <https://ssl.robocup.org/robocups/robocup-2025/robocup-2025-technical-challe…> . Thank you Emiel Steerneman RoboCup Small Size League | Technical Committee

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Awards and new Open Source Award deadline
by David Brand 14 May '25

14 May '25

Hello! As in the previous years, the awards for this year can be found on this years homepage: [RC 2025 - Awards](https://ssl.robocup.org/robocups/robocup-2025/robocup-2025-awards/) Like last year we will have the Excellence Award again, although the exact point system for this year is currently still in the works and going to be published in the next few weeks. New Open Source Award Submission Deadline: The submission deadline for this year's Open Source award is now 2 weeks before the start of the tournament and therefore July 01st(AoE). The submissions must still be sent to the [SSL Mailing List](robocup-small(a)lists.robocup.org), with the subject RoboCup 2025 - Open Source Award Submission <Your Team Name>. During the submission phase, we are going to collect all of them on the [Open Source Submission page](https://ssl.robocup.org/robocups/robocup-2025/robocup-2025-open-sourc…. After the submission deadline we are going to publish the voting ballots, so that each team can already start with the evaluation of the submissions. The presentation of the submissions as well as the voting deadline will still be during the RoboCup, so that everyone still has the possibility to discuss each submission and the submitting team is able to answer open questions in person. If you have any questions regarding the awards or this year's processes, please feel free to reach out to the SSL OC and TC. Thank you, David. ------------ RoboCup Small Size League | OC Member

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