[robocup-worldwide] Call for Participation in RoboCup 2013 Soccer Simulation 2D Competition

[Aijun Bai]

Call for Participation
Soccer Simulation League - 2D Simulation Competition, RoboCup 2013
June 24-30, 2013 (Eindhoven, The Netherlands)
http://www.robocup2013.org/

Introduction
------------
The RoboCup 2D Simulated Soccer League is the oldest of the RoboCup Soccer
Simulation Leagues. 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.
We would like to invite you to participate in the RoboCup 2013 Soccer
Simulation League, 2D competition, which will take place Jun 24-30, 2013,
in Eindhoven, The Netherlands. To pre-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 publish the agent source code. The teams will also
have to provide a binary file and annotated logfiles showing the team game
play quality.

Schedule
--------
Team Pre-Registration Deadline: *January 31, 2013 - 23:59 UTC*
Materials Submission Deadline: *February 15, 2013 - 23:59 UTC*
Qualification Notification: *March 1, 2013 - 23:59 UTC*

Qualification
--------------
In RoboCup 2013 up to 24 teams will be allowed to participate in the 2D
Simulation competitions. Qualification is based on the quality of the TDP,
the team's current performance based 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 processes 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 2013 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. See Appendix
A.1 for further explanations.
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 be in the middle of the tournament.
4. No-Show-Penalty:
If a team qualifies for RoboCup 2013, 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 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 (i.e. Helios, WrightEagle and
Marlik), and the OC (i.e. Aijun Bai, João Alberto Fabro and Karl Tuyls)
team(s) (if any) are automatically qualified (after pre-registering their
teams and submitting appropriate materials). 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 (31
January 2013). To pre-register, send an E-Mail to aijunbai at gmail.com with
the subject '2013 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 2013.
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 (15 February 2013). To send the qualification materials, send
an E-Mail to aijunbai at gmail.com with the subject '2013 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.tar.gz')
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 15th, 2013.

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 or source code should be compressed in a single file
named ('Binary_TeamName.tar.gz' or 'Source_TeamName.tar.gz').

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 8 logfiles
against one or more teams of last year's RoboCup (
http://www.socsim.robocup.org/files/2D/binary/RoboCup2012/) and 2 logfiles
against the latest agent2d (
http://sourceforge.jp/projects/rctools/downloads/55186/agent2d-3.1.1.tar.gz/or
later). 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
'Appendix_TeamName.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. Due to the size of logfiles, it
is recommended to store your files online and send only the link(s).

Qualification Results
-----------------------
The TDPs 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 results will be
announced on March 1th 2013. Please notice that the submitted materials of
all qualified teams will be made publicly available during the announcement
of qualification results.

Appendix
--------
A.1 Explanations to General Rule 1
"If a team is situated in more than one country, the bound location
counts." General rule 1 defines an upper bound of 6 teams from the same
country. If 6 qualified teams already originate from country A and there is
a team XY originating from country A as well as country B, team XY is not
allowed to participate in RoboCup despite the fact that the quota for
country B may not be reached.
A.2 Explanations to General Rule 2
"If a team is affiliated with more than one institution, the unbound
affiliation counts." General rule 2 defines that only one team per
institute may participate in RoboCup. However, if a team XY is affiliated
with institution A as well as institution B and there is already a team
affiliated with A, the team XY may participate.



Best Regards,
Aijun Bai

On Behalf of Organizing Committees
2D Competition, Soccer Simulation League
RoboCup 2013 - Eindhoven
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