Overview:
The bot starts at one end of a rectangle, a simple maze (follow-the-wall will solve it) leads to the other end. At the end are 25 ping pong balls randomly spread on the floor. Picking up a ball gets a point. The balls may be used to shoot down several cans placed on the top of the wall at the starting end of the arena, knocking those cans down are worth a lot of points. The best score at the end of the timed match wins.
Details:
The arena will be 12 feet long and 5 feet wide. The maze walls will be 2.5 feet long and placed at 2', 4', and 6', all perpendicular to the outside wall.
The side walls will be one foot high.
The five cans will be on a wall two feet high and will be standard US sized and empty. You may place your own beacons or indicators before the match starts, but the cans cannot be modified.
The floor will be made of either wood or metal and will be a light color (IR reflective)
There will be a 1/2" wide black stripe running down the center of the maze, so a line following bot can use that to get to the other end. The maze can also be solved by wall following.
There will be 25 standard ping pong balls randomly laid on the floor in the last section after the maze (see drawing). You may use your own balls, provided they are regulation size/weight. These are the only balls allowed in the arena.
Only one bot will run at a time.
Points
Picking up a ping pong ball gets you one point, you can only score one point per ball (no bouncing for points)
Knocking down a can with a ball gets you 25 points each (ball must fly at least a foot through the air). Knocking a can down through any other means are 5 points each.
Full AI controlled bots get triple points and double the time. (hybrid bots must declare beforehand which portions of their attempt will be AI)
The match lengths will be 5-7 minutes long, all bots get the same length of time except fully autonomous bots which get double.
Up to 25 Judges Points may be awarded to each team before the match to reward particularly creative designs.
Safety Stuff
Nothing dangerous to spectators (a net will be provided to protect the crowd from flying ping pong balls)
Nothing that permanently damages the arena or the balls.
Clarifications
"AI" means that it must be obvious to the judges that the bot is under its own control. If there's any ambiguity then it will be assumed that the bot is under manual control.
Let's say you do the maze and the ball pick up under full AI, and then take over manually to shoot the cans down. You'll get 3 points per ball instead of the normal 1, but still 25 points per can.
If you're able to shoot down two cans under full AI control (that means aiming, firing, loading, etc) and then switch to manual, you would get 75 points each for the first two can, and 25 each for the rest.
Good luck everyone!
