Impounding And Contest

Impounding Information

Impounding will start at 5 pm on Thursday, January 27. Teams will be called up one by one. At impounding we will

• ask about your robot's function and strategy
• ask if you are using the exploration round
• ask if you wish to keep your compute ($300, based on how many are available)
• check your robot's size and sensor points
• collect unused sensors, servos, and motors
• have you plug in your robot to charge
• distribute t-shirts
• inform you of any charges for broken/replacement parts

Final Contest Information

• Robots will be available starting at noon on Friday. If you do not pick up your robot by 1 PM, you will not be able to pick it up until 4 PM. You may use the time between noon and 4 PM to decorate your robot and calibrate sensors; however, do not write new code! Adding untested code before the contest is the best way to ensure embarrassment and throw away a month of hard work.
• At 4 PM, all teams should come to 26-100 to set up their robots and receive a final briefing on the contest logistics. You will be at the contest from 4 PM until around 9 PM, so don't forget to eat beforehand or bring dinner.
• The open house will begin at 5 PM (although people usually start arriving early). Audience members will come and talk to teams about their robots.

• The contest will begin at 5:30 PM. As with the mock contest, the teams on deck should be warming up their robots and be ready to go. You should have a team member assigned to the following tasks

  • Robot handler - places robot on the field, helps decide with the contest judge to end a round
  • Bot client person - gives IP address for the bot client
  • Speaker - chats with the MC about the robot during the round
• All teams must use the bot client. Publish every 6th or 7th frame and/or downsample the published image if you want more speed, but you must publish images. This is key to engaging the audience -- they're fascinated to see what the robot sees. The audience will cheer for a good wandering robot that publishes images even if it doesn't score. Publishing images also helps the speaker and MC discuss what the robot is thinking.
• Every team will go once for score, following which we will award team trophies and raffle prizes. After the prizes are given out, teams may go again for exhibition rounds (a large part of the audience usually sticks around to see this).