RoboCup 2020 Qualification

Important Dates

  • Team Qualification Material Submission Deadline: January 21, 2020
  • TDP Peer Review Deadline: February 11, 2020
  • Preliminary Team Qualification Results Announcement: February 25, 2020
  • Final TDP Submission Deadline: March 10, 2020
  • Final Team Qualification Results Announcement: March 24, 2020
  • Early Registration: ?
  • Regular Registration: ?
  • Late Registration: ?
  • Technical Challenges Sign Up Deadline: ?
  • Open Source Submission Deadline: ?
  • Team Setup: June 23 – June 24, 2020
  • Competitions: June 25 – June 28, 2020
  • Symposium: June 29, 2020

* All deadlines are by the end of the day at any place on Earth

Qualification Criteria

Every team interested to participate must complete the following actions by January 21st, 2020:

  • Submit a Team Description Paper (see instructions below).
  • Submit a Team Video (see instructions below).
  • Submit by e-mail to the organizing committee your intent to participate in RoboCup. The e-mail subject should be: 2020 Participation Intent <Your Team Name>. Please also include:
    • Team Name
    • Country
    • University
    • Main contact name and email
    • Website (if you have one)
    • Preferred Division (A or B) (More Information)
    • Short rationale for the preferred division

Please pay attention to the following points:

  • Communication will be made via e-mail, using the Small Size mailing list. Pay attention to these e-mails and answer the OC’s questions. A team that does not reply risks losing its qualified place.
  • We understand that new teams may struggle meeting all of the qualification criteria below. We encourage new teams to submit qualification video material demonstrating their true current capabilities, while stating in their Team Description Paper (TDP) what is expected to be completed by competition, teams not meeting minimum required criteria will be considered for inclusion only after all teams submitting compliant qualification materials.
  • There are two divisions with separate tournaments: division A and division B. Division A is aimed at advanced teams whereas new and/or less competitive teams can play in division B. Each team will only play in one of those two divisions. The teams may choose the division they want to play in, but the OC will have the final word.

Team Description Paper

As part of the qualification procedure, every division B team must submit a Team Description Paper (TDP) and every division A team an Extended Team Description Paper (ETDP). Every TDP and ETDP will be reviewed by a panel of peers. Teams that present substandard TDPs and ETDPs will not qualify for the RoboCup tournament.

TDP and ETDP Guidelines

All TDPs and ETDPs should follow these guidelines:

  • The TDP should contain a brief description of the team, with citations to previous TDPs and the team’s website where appropriate.
  • The TDP should focus on innovations that the team has produced with respect to their previous TDPs. These innovations should be described in detail, to facilitate reproducibility for other teams, where possible.
  • The TDP should have a clear structure and it should be written in clear English.
  • The TDP should be formatted according to the Springer LNCS format, as the symposium submissions.

In addition to the above requirements, ETDPs should follow these guidelines:

  • The ETDP should describe in detail the aspects of the team’s system which most contribute to its success.
  • The ETDP should be at least 6 pages long.

Submission Information

We have set up a conference management system to handle this years peer review process. It can be accessed at https://cmt3.research.microsoft.com/RCSSL2020.

To create an account, click on “Register”, next to the “New to CMT?” text. To submit a paper, click on the top left button “Create a new submission”.

Peer Review

Each team needs to review three other teams, thus resulting in three reviews per (E)TDP.

The Organizing Committee will assign reviewers to the papers.

Teams that do not review the papers assigned will not qualify.

Team Video

Your team video must contain at least 1 minute of unedited continuous footage and be under 2 minutes long. The qualification video can be either of the following types, although preference will be given to item 1 (then 2 and last 3):

  1. A video of your robots participating in a RoboCup game or one of the local regional competitions. The video should show obstacle avoidance, shooting and passing skill.
  2. A video of your robots (there must be at least two moving robots) engaging in two or more of the following activities:
    • One or more robots competing against an active robot goalkeeper.
    • Two or more robot field players actively going to the ball and playing against one another.
    • At least two robots playing cooperatively against 5 static or moving obstacles.
  3. A video showing one or more robots partially demonstrating capabilities listed in item 2.

The team video is used by the OC to determine the readiness of a team to compete effectively and is part of the criteria in ranking teams in the qualification process. Teams are advised to submit a video that best demonstrates the readiness of the team to compete in an international competition.

Submission Information

To submit the video footage, you must send an e-mail to the RoboCup Small Size League mailing list and CC it also to the organizing committee. The e-mail should contain the following information:

  • Subject: 2020 Qualification Video <Your Team Name>.
  • The URL of your video, which must be available via FTP or HTTP.

Please pay attention to the following:

  • Please submit a single video file.
  • The video must be stored on your own server or a reliable online video hosting service.
  • Do NOT send the video as an attachment to the mailing list nor to the organization committee!

Team Poster

Every team must bring a poster to the RoboCup competition that illustrates the content of the (E)TDP. The poster must have a size of roughly one square meter (A0) and will be hung up in the RoboCup venue for everyone to see and read.