Background

This year's competition is themed 'Mission to Mars.' The underlying premise behind the contest is a distant future in which space missions have been outsourced to the private and institutional sectors. As a result, contestants must construct a robot that can autonomously collect samples from the surface of the planet, deposit them in a designated area, and raise a flag to indicate supremacy.

The Contest

Each robot starts in one of the starting zones, facing a random orientation (the two contesting robots will start with symmetric orientations). After a 60 second calibration period, the robots are given 90 seconds to run around the board, collect both small and big balls, deposit them at their designated goal area (which is right across each starting zone), and optionally, raise their flag by spinning gears found at the flagbox in the center of the field. Small balls can easily slide into the goalmouth while big balls have to be lifted over the goal walls to score. As soon as time is up, the score is tallied and the robot with the higher score is declared the winner.

Scoring

The scoring system is extremely simple. Small and big balls in your goal area are worth 1 point and 4 points each respectively, regardless of who they were scored by. Raising the flag higher than your opponent multiplies your score by 2.