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-w8ULEiOmfYrFeR1B6A25...]

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#_requi...

and https://robocup-ssl.github.io/ssl-hardware-challenge-rules/rules.html#_gener...

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%3Aclo...

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 herehttps://2021.robocup.org/participants/schedule. The schedule for the symposium can be seen herehttps://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: r*******c@lists.robocup.org

Thank you!

Carla Cosenza

RoboCup Small Size League | Organizing Committee