Hello,
After a break in the updates last week, we are back with another round of news for this year's tournament. We hope that the preparations for the tournament are going well and that all of you are already hyped for this year's RoboCup. In addition to the news please keep in mind that the deadline for open source submissions is in about a week. (Additional info can be found under [Open Source Award](https://ssl.robocup.org/robocups/robocup-2026/robocup-2026-awards/))
Tournament Structure & Schedule
With the regular registration deadline having passed by, we now know that we will be playing with 14 teams in Division B, as well as 8 teams in Division A. In addition to that, we also got the general schedule for this year, so that the following schedule can hopefully be seen as the official schedule for this year. [RC 2026 Schedule](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1bsxqOYN0DLLImdCsPusrCoxQJg-8Yvbey3NS...) Still, when looking at it, please have two things in mind: All entries with question marks behind them haven’t been finalized yet, as we still need to book meeting rooms for example. Also we currently know for sure that the venue will be open at least from 8:00 to 22:00 o’clock for major teams, which is why we used this timeframe for the schedule. But it is not yet known whether the venue might actually be open longer. As soon as we have a final answer on that, we will update the schedule accordingly and send out an update.
Based on the random numbers for June 7th (sorry for the date mixup in the last mail, using numbers from the day after the symposium would be a bit inconvenient), we received the following groups:
Div A - Group 1 (Seeding Tool Group A) TIGERs_Mannheim (GermanyA) RoboDragons (JapanA) ER-Force (GermanyB) Ri-one (JapanC)
Div A - Group 2 (Seeding Tool Group B) ZJUNlict (ChinaA) KIKS (JapanB) RoboCIn (Brazil) luhbots (GermanyC)
Div B - Group 1 (Seeding Tool Group A) The_Bots (Canada) Delft_Mercurians (Netherlands) TritonBots (USA) GreenTea (Japan)
Div B - Group 2 (Seeding Tool Group D) RoboJackets (USA) NAMeC (France) TurtleRabbit (Australia) RoboCup_Junior_SSL_Team (Germany)
Div B - Group 3 (Seeding Tool Group B) Warthog_Robotics (Brazil) The_A-Team (USA) Traps (Japan) dummy (dummy)
Div B - Group 4 (Seeding Tool Group C) ITAndroids (Brazil) UBC_Thunderbots (Canada) dummy2 (dummy) SeeGoals (Sweden)
The schedule has been updated with the groups, so that you can already take a look, when you will be playing.
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/oRRTrdaw3VqyCdHs7 It has been redesigned this year to be closer to an actual match and therefore concentrates much more on the basics compared to last year. (Thanks a lot to TIGERs and especially Laura, who took over this task)
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.
In case your team has only a small number of members, please still fill in the quiz, as getting to know the rules and roles during the match is also quite crucial for the robot handler(s) of each team. But also reach out to the OC(r*******c@lists.robocup.org), so that we can see whether we can adapt the amount of referee duties for your team.
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 server](https://discord.gg/t724m8c). 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 to this there is also the official Discord Server for the whole RoboCup: https://discord.gg/q4AfnY7fx6 In case you haven’t joined it yet, feel free to do so as well, as it is not just for the single tournament, but also for other events and a general exchange between the leagues during the year.
What to bring
Network/Wireless: 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, network cables, as well as any needed adapters. Whilst personal wifis should be banned at the venue again, the venue plans to offer a public wifi. Nonetheless we still suggest using cabled solutions (also for mice, headphones, etc.) where ever possible, to declutter the radio spectrum and as a good idea in general, as radio solutions used for robots might be more powerful and therefore could lead to you not being able to use wireless solutions for personal reasons anyway.
Power: South Korea uses the type C and F power plugs and outlets, which supply in general 220 V at 60 Hz. Your team table might offer only one powersocket and will be limited to a maximum allocated power of 2 kW per team. We hope that this won't be an issue for most teams, but are already in talks with the organizers, to find out about other options for charging the batteries of the robots. In case the available power would be an issue for your team, please reach out to the OC with estimates on the required power for your team table.
General information:
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.
In case of any questions, please feel free to reach out to any committee member.
Thank you,
David.
On behalf of the SSL OC