TCEA Robotics: Introduction to the 2007 Competition
So, you have decided to participate in the 2007 TCEA Robotics competition? Congratulations, and welcome!
I want to take a few lines of text here to explain the purpose behind this year’s competition and throw out a few notes about its development. You may have noticed that we are repeating the same competition (for the most part) from last year. There are several main reasons for doing this:
- We want to see a higher level of play at the state level - this year, teams will have more experience and have had a longer time to think about solving the competition.
- We wanted to refine rules we had experience with to streamline how the competition is carried out. (In other words, improve on what we learned from last year)
- We want to release the 2008 competition information AT the February 2007 competition in order to give teams a full year to prepare for a new challenge.
With that in mind, I would like to review what is different in this year’s rules:
- Cleaner play board: we felt that there was just a little too much ’stuff’ on the play board last year. So, we have: 1) reduced the number of debris; and 2) reduced the number of lines on the board. Less debris makes for easier navigation (while still keeping the level of challenge) and creating a solid, 8″ dead zone reduces confusion on the part of the robots.
- More lenient DQ rules: there were too many DQ’s last year, and that is just NO fun! So, we have made the DQ rules a little more lenient and added a penalty for those robots that cross the line. While we’ll be discussing how the DQ’s are assessed on the TCEA competition discussion forum, the basic premise will be:
- A robot that crosses into it’s opponents territory will receive a penalty. It is up the the judges on how many penalties to apply (for example, a robot that is twitching back and forth across their opponents line will not be assessed 30 penalties).
- A robot that alters the path or course of their opponent while on their opponents side will be DQ’d.
- A robot that alters the position of their opponents objects while on their opponents side will be DQ’d.
- Plain and simple, stay on your side!
- Easier tie breaker: Last year, it was ‘first rescue’. This year, it is ‘first contact’! Whoever touches a survivor first will receive the mark for breaking a tie. We had too many coin tosses last year, and this rule should help eliminate a large majority of those. How will YOU take this new rule into account to assure that YOU win in the event of a tie? Our judges will have to be on their toes to watch for first contact!
So, with all that in mind, it should be a great competition! It is imperative that students get on the TCEA message board, create an account and participate in the discussions from now until February. Also, keep an eye on this tag (TCEARobotics2007) as I continue to post team activities that will help prepare you for the 2007 TCEA State Robotics Competition!
Jerram Froese
TCEA Robotics Competition Coordinator