[robocup-worldwide] Call for Participat​ion - 2D Simulation Competitio​n, RoboCup 2012

[Luis Paulo Reis]

Call for Participation
Soccer Simulation League - 2D Simulation Competition, RoboCup 2012
June 18-24, 2012 (Mexico City, Mexico)
http://www.robocup2012.org/

Introduction
------------
The RoboCup 2D simulation Soccer League is the oldest of the RoboCup 
Simulation competitions. It is based on the RoboCup Soccer Simulator 
that enables two teams of 11 simulated autonomous robots plus an 
autonomous coach agent to play a game of soccer with very realistic 
rules and game play. Due to its stability the RoboCup Soccer Simulator 
is a very good research and educational tool for multi-agent systems, 
artificial intelligence and machine learning.
Since teams competing at the 2D RoboCup Simulation League have settled 
on a high competitive standard and in order to promote scientific 
research, the qualification will be based on a measurement of the 
quality of the team's scientific work expressed by a submitted Team 
Description Paper and logfiles with appropriate annotations.
In RoboCup 2012 up to 24 teams will be allowed to participate in the 2D 
Simulation competitions. To register all teams have to provide a Team 
Description Paper and, in case they are based on another team under a 
license, they have to attach the agent source code.

Schedule
--------
The schedule of 2D competition is aligned with the general RoboCup 2012 
schedule:
Team Pre-Registration Deadline: February 29, 2012 - 23:59 UTC
Team Qualification Material Submission: March 6, 2012- 23:59 UTC
Early Registration: March 1 – April 30, 2012
Regular Registration: May 1 – May 31, 2012 (No team registration 
accepted after May 31)
Late registration: June 1 – June 23 2012 (Team members only)

Qualification
--------------
Qualification is based on the quality of the TDP and the team's current 
performance based on the team binary and annotated logfiles sent. 
Previous achievements in RoboCup and scientific contributions to the 
RoboCup community in past years are also relevant for qualification.
There are several general rules on which the qualification process as 
well as the tournaments are based:
1. One-Fourth-Rule: Only one fourth of the participating teams may be 
from the same country. With 24 places in RoboCup 2012 only 6 teams per 
country are allowed. If a team is situated in more than one country, the 
bound location counts. Teams infringing this rule will be ignored in the 
ordered list of qualified teams. False statement results in penalty.
2. One-Team-Per-Research-Institution:
Each university or research institute may only qualify one team. If a 
team is affiliated with more than one institution, the unbound 
affiliation counts. Teams infringing this rule will be ignored in the 
ordered list of qualified teams. False statement results in penalty.
3. Plagiarism-Penalty:
If a team commits plagiarism, the team and its members will be banned 
from participation for this and next year’s RoboCup. The term plagiarism 
comprises any use of external knowledge without proper referencing, i.e. 
copying or using the thoughts, ideas, texts or language in general and 
presenting them as their own. This applies for Team Description Papers 
as well as logfiles, team code and binaries. All kinds of licenses and 
copyright have to be respected. This applies for the qualification 
process as well as the RoboCup tournaments. Please be aware that when a 
team is found guilty of committing plagiarism it is disqualified and 
banned at any time. This may also happen in the middle of the 
tournament. For 2012 tournment the following teams and team-members are 
banned (AxiomOfChoice, Iran, Nemesis and ParaNoid)
4. No-Show-Penalty:
If a team qualifies for RoboCup 2012, but is not able to participate, 
it has to cancel its participation before the deadline in order to give 
the next-ranked team the chance to take its place. If there are reasons 
for delays in registration the team has to let the OC know so that a 
reaction in time is possible. If a team fails to observe this rule 
(’no-show’), the team and its members will be banned for next RoboCup 
competitions.
5. Academic-Fairness-Rule:
If any team breaches general academic fairness in any other way, it has 
to face penalties as well.
6. Automatic-Qualification-Rules:
The top three teams from last RoboCup, the local organizing team as 
well as the OC team(s) (if any) are automatically qualified (after 
pre-registering their teams and submitting appropriate TDPs). The 
remaining teams will be selected through the qualification process.

Pre-Registration
----------------
All teams who wish to qualify need to pre-register before the deadline 
(29 February, 2012). To pre-register, send an E-Mail to 
RoboCup2dSim at gmail.com with the subject '2012 Pre-registration 
TeamName'. The E-Mail should contain the following information:
1. Team-Name:
2. Country:
3. Affiliation:
4. Team-Leader:
5. Team Members:
6. Contact E-Mail:
7. Base-Team:
8. Dependencies:
You should receive a confirmation e-mail for your pre-registration.
Affiliation is the team's organization, institute or university. 
Dependencies should include all dependencies of your team binaries from 
the standard repositories (we will set these up before hands, so every 
team binary should be executable at the tournament). Under Base-Team 
each team using another team as base for their agents, has to specify 
this team. Please note that you have to provide correct and full 
information and giving false or incomplete statement will be penalized 
with banning of the team and its members. Please be aware that with 
respect to gentlemanly play, we will NOT allow any team name changes 
from the pre-registration to the competition in RoboCup 2012.
If a team has based its agent on external code or libraries published 
under certain licenses or copyright, it has to observe the according 
rules. In most cases this will be the GNU General Public License, i.e. a 
proper disclaimer has to be included in Team Description Paper and 
source code and the source code has to be submitted as well. After 
official RoboCup competitions the binaries will be published, i.e. the 
rules of the corresponding license have to be respected as well. For GPL 
this also implies publishing the code.

Qualification Materials
-----------------------
All teams who wish to qualify need to send their qualification 
materials by the deadline (March 6th, 2012). To send the qualification 
materials, send an E-Mail to RoboCup2dSim at gmail.com with the subject 
'2012 Qualification Materials TeamName'. The E-Mail should contain the 
following information and files:
1. Team-Name:
2. Country:
3. Affiliation:
4. Team-Leader:
5. Team Members:
6. Contact E-Mail:
7. Base-Team:
8. Dependencies:
Attachment Files:
9. Team Description Paper (’TDP_TeamName.pdf’)
10. Team Binary (and also source code depending on the base code 
license)
11. Logfiles (compressed in a single file (Logfiles_TeamName.xxx’)
12. Appendix (’Appendix_TeamName.pdf’)
In order to participate in qualification, a team has to send as 
attachments a Team Description paper, the team current binary as well as 
logfiles showing the team’s game play quality and a separate appendix to 
the TDP describing the logfiles. The deadline for submission is March 
6th, 2012.

Team Description Paper
----------------------
Each team has to submit a team description paper (in English) 
describing the focus and ideas as well as recent advancements 
implemented in the team. This paper must have a length of 4 to 6 pages 
in Springer LNCS style and has to be submitted as PDF (to be named 
’TDP-TeamName.pdf’). Please note: A team can only be qualified if the 
quality of its TDP is appropriate!
The Team Description Paper (TDP) should comprise, among other things: 
the scientific focus of the team; team’s current efforts; progress since 
last TDP/competition; team base code and description how the team is 
different from the base code; originality of the team's approach; 
results (team results or ideally results achieved using the team's main 
scientific contribution(s)); related work (at least 5 and ideally more 
than 10 references comparing the work with related work developed by 
other teams).
Please be aware that the TDP has to describe the team’s very own 
scientific efforts and explicitly illustrate whether a team has used 
external knowledge (ideas, code, agent base or the like) to build upon. 
If a team did use knowledge not evolved by this team, the own 
achievements have to be outlined in contrast to this. This also applies 
if one or more team members have switched from another team or a new 
team is created on the base of another even though the involved persons 
have not changed. If external knowledge is used but not referenced, 
explained and differentiated from in the TDP, the team and its members 
will be penalized with banning for this and next year’s RoboCup.

Team Binary/Source Code
-----------------------
Teams should send an attachment with a working binary. Depending on the 
base code license teams should also provide the team's complete source 
code. Team binary and source code should be compressed in a single file 
named (’TeamNameBin.xxx’ or ’TeamNameSource.xxx’).

Logfiles and Appendix
---------------------
In order to assess the team’s performance and evaluate its scientific 
efforts in the context of game play, teams have to submit 4 logfiles 
against one or more of the top teams of last year’s RoboCup and 2 
logfiles against agent2d. Logfiles comprise both rcg and rcl in version 
5 (server::game_log_version = 5 ) generated with compression 
(server::game_log_compression = 1 and server::text_log_compression = 1 ) 
on using the most recent version of the Soccer Server. These logfiles 
have to prove that the team is competitive enough to participate and 
demonstrate the team’s characteristics. It is expected that specific 
scenes from these logfiles are referenced from within a separate 
appendix (to be named ’TeamName_Appendix.pdf’, consisting of entries in 
the following form: <file-name> <start time in cycles> <duration in 
cycles> <description of the scene>; additional graphics are allowed) 
accompanying the TDP, linking research with implementation and game 
play.

Qualification Decisions
-----------------------
The TDPs, binaries and logfiles of all teams will be peer reviewed by 
experts in 2D RoboCup Simulation League nominated by the OC. The 
reviewers will evaluate the qualification materials and rank the teams. 
The ranks will be averaged into a global ranking and the top teams on 
that ranking will be qualified for the RoboCup 2D simulation 
competition. Qualification decision will be announced March 15th 2012.

Best Regards,

Luis Paulo Reis

On Behalf of Organizing and Technical Committees
2D Competition, Soccer Simulation League
RoboCup 2012 - Mexico City

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Luis Paulo Reis
Homepage: Http://www.fe.up.pt/~lpreis
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Associate Professor at University of Minho - DSI/School of Engineering
University of Minho, Campus de Azurém 4800-058 Guimarães
Member of the Directive Board of LIACC - Artificial Intelligence
and Computer Science Lab.
Tel. +351 253510312 / +351 919455251 / Fax: +351 253510300
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