RCM ping pong ball game

[joshua-8]

This was the original RCM game, played the summer of 2020 over video calls and forwarded network ports.

RCM ping pong ball game:

Robot rules:

• Controlled and powered by only one Robot Control Module control system with 5AAs.
• Editing code for sensors and autonomous routines is allowed if disabling is still reliable.
• The robot must fit in a one foot cube (at all times).
• Damaging the opponent is not the goal of this game. If your robot looks like it has the potential to heavily damage robots or be dangerous in any way to a person you will have to change your design.
• If you want someone else to build your design, talk with them about what materials and tools are available.

Field:

• 4x4 foot square area.
• The field is surrounded with approximately 1 inch tall walls to keep balls inside.
• The walls are weak, try not to break them.
• 5 ping pong balls will be set up along the midline of the field that divides the field into the loading zone side and goal side.
• The floor is not perfectly smooth, there may be some blobs of hot glue.
• Drivers will have to drive from a video stream (sometimes full field, sometimes FPV views will be available) and should expect half a second or more of lag.
• The field automatically moves balls from your goal to the opponent’s loading zone. This should take about 5 seconds. The balls come out at the loading zone with enough speed that they will usually roll out of the loading zone if you’re not there to catch it.
• The low goals are at ground level and 5 inches wide. Balls may bounce out if thrown in at too high of a speed, and they won’t count then.
• The high goals are 8 inches off the ground and also 5 inches wide.
• If a goal stops transporting balls correctly, and no one quickly fixes it during the match, the score doesn’t count and the match should be replayed.
• The field is imprecise, to reduce any biased effects from it, players can switch sides each match.
• If you want to use automatic targeting on your robot and need some kind of vision target/tape lines on the floor, you may ask the referee to approve targets to place on the field. (Anything that doesn’t affect the functioning of the field should be fine, though some materials may not be immediately available).

Game rules:

• Everyone is expected to act in the spirit of gracious professionalism and friendly competition.
• Robots start in their loading zones.
• If you are in your opponent’s loading zone and your opponent touches your robot, you get a foul. You won’t be fouled if your opponent pushes you into their loading zone.
• Robots may not intentionally obstruct the scoring of any game piece by sitting in front of the goals (FOUL and FOUL for every 5 seconds the goal is blocked).
• A match is 3 minutes long (unless drivers agree to a different length).
• If your robot causes a ball to leave the field, you get a foul.
• If you pin your opponent for more than 5 seconds, you get a foul.
• Don’t try to damage or tip your opponent. If defense leads to accidental damage, the driver with the damaged robot may choose to end the match early to prevent more damage.
• If a player has major connection issues (multiple >5 second connection losses), the referee can call a field fault and after the issue is fixed the match is replayed.
• If you touch more than one ball at a time you get a foul. This does not include quick non strategic contact.

Scoring:

• 1 point per low goal
• 2 points per high goal
• A foul subtracts 5 points from your score (but your score can’t go below 0)
• Manual scoring from a video replay is considered the official score if it’s different from automatic or manual real time scoring.

[joshua-8]

robots: https://github.com/orgs/RCMgames/discussions/categories/robots?discussions_q=is%3Aopen+category%3Arobots+label%3A%22game%3A+ping+pong+ball+game%22