[robocup-worldwide] Pre-Registration for 2D Simulation League - two days for the deadline (Feb 29th)

[Luis Paulo Reis]

Dear all,

You still have two days to pre-register for RoboCup 2D Simulation
League to be held in Mexico City. We have already received 25
pre-registrations. The pre-registered teams are:
Armik, Iran
AUA2D, China
AUT_2D, Iran
Axiom, Iran
CSU_Yunlu, China
Dreamwing2D, China
FC Portugal 2D, Portugal
GDUT_TiJi, China
HELIOS2012, Japan
HfutEngine2d, China
ITAndroids, Brazil
Mars/GPC, Iran
NADCO-2D, Iran
Nexus2D, Iran
Oxsy, Romania
Radian, Iran
Ri-one, Japan
Riton, Iran
S2PLUS, Iran
Sarina, Iran
SkyLand, Iran
Tornado, Iran
UaiSoccer2D, Brazil
Warthog Robotics, Brazil
YuShan, China

Attached you may find the 2D Simulation league call for participation.
If you plan to participate, please pre-register and send the
qualification materials as soon as possible.

Best Regards,

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.
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
(before Feb 29th).
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 (29 February 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 February 29th, 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

-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Luis Paulo Reis
Homepage: Http://www.fe.up.pt/~lpreis
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Don't close your eyes unless you can dream.
Don't open your eyes unless you can believe!"
----------------------------------------------------------------------------