2022 Cooper Union Robot Tank Battle Rules

The objective of the game is to have your autonomous robot score as many points as it can by shooting 40 mm ping pong balls at the opponent’s home base and/or robot. In order to accomplish this, your robot must leave its home dock, navigate the arena to get within range of the opponent’s robot or the opponent’s home base, fire a shot, and return to its own home dock for human reloading. Obstacles will be present in the arena at random locations for each round. Each robot team will play 4 rounds of 5 minutes each with a 5 minute rest period between rounds.

Arena Boundary Specifications

The battlefield will be a 6 feet x 10 feet rectangle enclosed by wooden walls approximately 1 foot high. The wall will be recessed slightly (0.25” to 1” deep) for lengths of 1 foot at the locations of the bases. The floor will be the floor usual classroom.

Home Base Specifications

Each home base will be a recessed 1 foot wall (as described above). There will be a hole cut out in center of the 1 foot by 1 foot home base wall where IR LED light sources will shine through.

Obstacle Specifications

Obstacles will be placed at random areas in the arena. Obstacles can be collidable or traversable.
Collidable objects will be shaped approximately like an oval or rectangle verticaly projected approximately 1 foot in height.
Traversable objects will be of any shape and texture, such as ramps, steps, or rugs with a height of at most 3/8 inch (formerly 1/4 inch in 2015). They will not contain displacable matter, such as sand or water. There will be no direct line-of-sight from one base to the other without a collidable obstacle in the way.

Dock Specifications

Each robot team will have a home dock. This will be a black 1 foot radius semicircle on the ground surrounding its home base.

Robot IR Heat Signature

A small ring (footprint of approximately 2.5 square inches) of IR LED’s (Model: TSAL6400, peak emission = 940 nm) will be mounted on top of each robot. Each robot is require to have a small “platform” on which the simulated IR heat signature can be mounted stably in a horizontal orientation such that it can emit 360 degrees (at least zero degrees angle of elevation) around the robot. This object will be counted as part of the robot for scoring (described below) purposes.

Robot Rules

A robot must fit into a box 1 foot long by 1 foot wide by 10 inches high in all modes of operation. There may be no extension of robot parts beyond this space. If a team wishes to place a decorative item that has no effect on the game, then that item will not be counted as part of the robot for size purposes, however will be counted as part of the robot for scoring (described below) purposes.

A robot may not intentionally separate into multiple parts or leave any parts in the arena other than its fired ping pong ball.

A robot may not have any parts or devices that are designed to intentionally damage the arena, another robot, or humans.

Game Rules

A robot can carry one ball maximum at any given time.

A robot is considered “docked” when any part of the robot covers part of its home dock from a vertical perspective.

A robot may be re-loaded by the human team only when it is docked as described in “Robot Docking and Reloading” below.

A ball released by a robot is considered “dead” (i.e. it cannot score any points):

after it ejects from a docked robot (no reward for shooting from home base)
after it touches an object other than the ground (e.g. it may be rolled but may not ricocheted off the wall towards the opponent)
after it touches the releaser itself (e.g. the robot may not “guide” the ball with its own body)
after it comes to a complete stop.
after it has reached a height of 1 foot from the ground (no shooting over collidable obstacles!)

All other times, the released ball is considered “live” (i.e. it can score points).

There may be ping pong balls strewn around the arena during the game. Consider this “debris”. There will be an attempt to remove any debris from the arena if it is approximately 4 feet or a greater distance from any fielded robot. A team may remove debris from its home dock to clear the area for their robot to be placed, but they cannot place it back somewhere else. Once dock debris is “disturbed” by the team’s human actions it must be removed for good.

Ping Pong Ball Scoring

Opponent Base Hit (10 pts): When a robot releases a ball that touches its opponent’s base while the ball is live, this is considered an opponent base hit.

Docked Robot Hit (10 pts): When a robot releases a ball that touches the docked opponent robot while the ball is live, this is considered a docked robot hit.

Fielded Robot Hit (20 pts): When a undocked robot releases a ball that touches the undocked opponent robot while the ball is live, this is considered a fielded robot hit. Get your robots into the field!

Robot Self Hit (0 pts): If the live ball touches the robot where the ball originated from, that ball is considered “dead” (no penalty will be given to a robot hit by its own ball by catching up to it, but the robot may not “guide” the ball with its own body, either. See above Game Rules section).

Penalties

Home Base Hit (-10 pts): When a robot releases a ball that touches its own home base while the ball is live, this is considered a home base hit. Be careful not to shoot your own base!

Collision (-10 pts. / round): When a robot comes into contact with anything other than a ball, a floor obstacle, or the opponent robot, it is considered a collision. The penalty will only be assessed once per round. No penalties will be assessed for collisions with other robots or caused by robot-robot-contact. In the case of two robots getting entangled with each other or otherwise causing a potentially negative effect through extended physical contact, they can be removed from the arena and reset at their home dock with no penalty. This can be ordered by the referee.

Emergency Teleport (-10 pts.): If desired, a team may recover their non-docked robot as if it has docked (as in Robot Docking and Reloading below).

Robot Docking and Reloading

The human team may pick up its own robot when any part of the robot covers part of its home dock (from a vertical perspective). After the robot is “docked inside the base”, the human team may perform any form of maintenance and reloading of the robot with the exception of uploading a human made map of the arena. The robot may then be placed anywhere entirely within the boundaries of its home dock and restarted for its next attack run. In the case where the opponent robot has stopped or is roaming around the home dock such that the robot cannot be placed entirely within the dock area, it is allowed that the robot be placed in a location closest to the home base possible (even if part of it may protrude outside the dock boundary) and restarted for its next attack run.