[robocup-humanoid] V-HSC Newsletter 8

[Ludovic Hofer]

Dear Humanoid Teams,

This is the eighth Humanoid league newsletter.

It will present the following topics:

- Cyberbotics release
- GameController release
- Upcoming dates

# Cyberbotics release
=====================
Cyberbotics released a new version of the AutoReferee on April 30th. It
included an update of the robot controller API which now contains the
system time of the messages in addition to the simulated time.

Since then, we have made significant improvements, especially with
respect to the three following points:

- Implementation of the inactive goalkeeper penalty
- Fixes regarding the penalty shootouts
- Asynchronous communication between the robot controllers and the
simulator.

We have now decided to always have the most recent stable version on our
own fork of the Webots repository, in the `release` branch:
https://github.com/RoboCup-Humanoid-TC/webots

The current version includes almost the entire rules of the current laws
of the game, with three main exceptions:

1. Ball holding: Will be released May 10th
2. Forceful contact: Will be released May 14th
3. Ball handling: Will be released May 19th

If you are testing the AutoReferee and you notice any unexpected
behavior, please open an issue in our webots fork.

# GameController release
========================

We also made major updates to the GameController:

Data sent through UDP have been updated to include two new fields per
player: https://github.com/RoboCup-Humanoid-TC/GameController/wiki/RobotInfo
- The number of warning received
- A goalkeeper flag that marks the current goalkeeper

Teams are now also able to send two new updates to the GameController:
https://github.com/RoboCup-Humanoid-TC/GameController/wiki/GameControlReturnData

- During a stoppage of game, any robot can request to be the goalkeeper.
- During a stoppage of a game, any robot can request the execution of
the free kick to start after at least 15 seconds of preparation phase
have elapsed.

The GameController will ignore these messages if they are sent outside
the allowed time window.

# Upcoming dates
================
- May 7th: Feedback on the first draft of the robot models sent to teams
- May 10th:
- Next update of the API specification and the server infrastructure
requirements released
- Next release of AutoReferee including an implementation for ball holding
- Sign-up for mock-competition starts
- May 14th: Release of the forceful contact detection in the AutoReferee
- May 19th: Final release of the AutoReferee
- May 21st: Sign-up for Mock-competition ends

We welcome all your questions and comments on the Discord channel and
the Forum.

Cheers,

Ludovic (for the Humanoid League Organizing Committee)


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