Eurobot 2013

This year, robots want to celebrate their birthday in an unforgettable way. For this purpose, a set of actions will be proposed in order to score as much points as possible with their guests.
- The gifts: robots must unwrap the gift in order to reveal its content.
- The candles: robots must blow out as many candles as possible (and cooperate to blow even more candles).
- The fruit juice fountain: robots must serve drinks to the guests.
- The cherries on the cake: robots must put as many cherries as possible on the top of the cake. Beware of the rotten cherries!
- The party: at the end of the game, stationary robots can blow up embedded balloons.

Overview of the playing area (table and components)
Fig. 1. Overview of the playing area (table and components)

The gifts are represented by thin wooden boards, painted in the specific colour allocated to each team. There are eight gifts in total, gathered in pairs. Robots must only knock over the gifts of their own colour. If a team knocks over the gifts of the opponents, points of the action will be given to these at the end of the match.

A three-levels tank-topped half-cake stands against the back ridge of the table. The candles are represented by coloured hollow pipes, and are set on two levels. 12 candles stand on the first level (4 blue, 4 red and 4 white) and 8 on the second one (4 blue and 4 red). Only the white candles and those on the edge of each level are fixed. In order to blow out the candles, robots must push in the tennis balls into the coloured pipes until they completely disappear.

There is also a partnership action: the two teams must blow out the four white candles set on the centre of the first level. At the end of the match, the white blown out candles will give points to both teams. The robots must only blow out the candles of their own colour and the “partnership candles”. If a team blows the candles of the opponents, points will be given to these ones at the end of the match.

The glasses are common to both teams and are depicted as mobile pipes. In total, there are 12 transparent, black-painted wooden-bottom pipes. During the match, robots will have to pick glasses in the central area, bring them back to their building area and try to make a pyramid with them. The gathered glasses will give points only if a pyramid is built with them. The higher the pyramid, the more points the team will score.

Robots must pick the good cherries in the plates and send them to the basket, into their own compartment (painted in the team’s own colour), above the candles. The cherries fallen on the playing area can be picked up by both teams. The rotten cherry can not be sent to the opponents’ basket.

At the end of the 90-seconds round, the robots must stop and only at that point the devices dedicated to the balloons’ blowing up can start working during 10 extra seconds. In any case, the inflated balloons must remain fastened to the robot(s).

All the actions are independent from each other and no order has to be followed to realize them. Performing all the actions is not mandatory, but everything the robot does adds up to its final score.