NEXUS: BEHIND ENEMY LINES

Introduction
In the dense and dangerous area of Karadhras lies a land which is doomed and yet so cursed that no one other than the natives can survive here. The swampy marshes and the thick forests will truly test your mental presence and your physical ability. The Black Caiman and Poison dart frogs waiting to inject their prey in which they do not distinguish humans, the electric eels waiting to stun your instincts and the anacondas waiting to crush your strength into mere mockery of human superiority, this land spells doom in every other aspect. It is the Land of the Moria. After a grueling briefing of triangles and coordinates of the target, the CORE team gets ready for deploy. The deploy plane loaded its artillery and the team and zoomed for the deploy target in the Moria. Little did they knew that 5 minutes later a heavy crusading bazooka strike will blow off the airplane back gate and 2 men will be thrown off the plane and the mission could turn out to be their worst nightmare. They were now trapped in the forest's of Moria and were Behind Enemy Lines. Techfest brings to you this grueling mission for Nexus in which you will have to make an autonomous bot to rescue these trapped men to the nearest army base. In the competition, the deposit zones are the army bases and the blocks are the trapped men. It is your responsibility to make an autonomous bot which can save these men by bypassing enemy bases which are the nodes. What are you waiting for? The quest has begun and the time is running out.

Task
Teams must build a maze solving autonomous bot that works purely on the principle of line following. The bot must be capable of carrying the white blocks from the starting position and deposit them in the two different zones in minimum possible time by avoiding nodes and moving through bridges and then returning back to the starting position.

Arena
1. The arena is in the form of a maze which consists of a 5 x 5 squares grid with white lines representing the path on a black surface.The lines will be equally spaced. Each cell of the grid will be a square with inner dimensions 270 mm x 270 mm. The thickness of each white line is 30 mm. 2. There are nodes and bridges on the arena. Nodes: Nodes will be present at the intersection of 2 white lines. The node will be of the size of 30 mm x 30 mm and will be black in colour. Please note that the nodes will NOT be present at all the intersection points. Bridges: The Bridge will be joining the centres of 2 adjacent sides of a square. The bridge will be of thickness 30 mm and will be white in colour. 3. There are 2 deposit zones as shown in the figure 2. The colour of the zones in the arena will be black. 4. At the start of each run, the bot must be placed at the start zone within a horizontal square of 220 mm x 220 mm (Starting Point). 5. Block It is a cube of dimensions 100 mm x 100 mm x 100 mm. The block will have white colour on all 6 sides. The block is made of non-magnetic material and has a maximum weight of 60 grams. Each block will be placed as shown in the figure 1 and 2. The picture of the block is given below in figure 3. 6. The dimensions of the arena would be accurate to within 5% or 20 mm, whichever is less. Assembly joints on the arena floor will not involve steps greater than 0.5 mm. 7. Light conditions at the venue might not be uniform. 8. The actual arena will look like figure 1.Figure 2 has been coloured for convenience. 9. NOTE The orientation of nodes and bridges may not be the same on the day of competition as shown in the figures.

Figure 1: Arena (3D View)

Figure 2: Arena

Figure 3 : Block

Figure 4: Arena with Dimensions

Figure 5: Enlarged View of Square Section

Bot Specifications
Dimensions and Fabrications
1. The top view projection of the bot must fit within a square of dimensions 200mm x 200mm (l x b).There are no restrictions on the height of the bot. 2. The bot must be stable and must stand on its own at the beginning of the race when put in the starting point. Bot not fulfilling this criterion will be disqualified. 3. During the run, the bot can expand itself provided it does not damage the arena in anyway. However, it is not allowed to leave anything behind or make any marks while traversing the grid at any point of time. All bots found damaging the arena will be immediately disqualified. The final decision is at the discretion of the organisers. 4. The bot should not separate or split into two or more units. All bots/units which are touching each other or are in the start zone will be considered as one bot. 5. The methods of collection and delivery of the blocks are at the discretion of the builder. But teams damaging the blocks will be disqualified. 6. The teams are allowed to use ready-made micro-controller boards/ready-made sensor kits.

 Power Supply and Propulsion

1. The bots have to use an on-board power supply. No external power supply will be allowed. 2. Each team shall bring their own power supply for all its bots. 3. The potential difference between any two points on any of the bots must not exceed 24 V DC. 4. The method of propulsion is at the discretion of the builder, provided that the power source is non-polluting. 5. In case the bot is using a non-electric power supply, kindly get it approved from the organisers beforehand via email. Organisers are not responsible for inconvenience if approval is not sought.

Controls
1. The bot must be completely autonomous. 2. It should not receive any input from outside the arena. 3. The bot must strictly use the principle of line following.

Rules
Game Rules
The teams will have to submit their bot before the start of the competition. Only those teams which submit their bots will be allowed to participate. The bot will be handed back to the team during the time of their run. Theyll be given 2 minutes to do any hardware changes if they wish. If the teams are found to alter their code after depositing their bots, theyll be disqualified. They are however allowed to make any other hardware changes. 1. The maximum time given for completing the task is 4 minutes. Only one run will be given to a team. Before the start of the run, a dry run of 4 minutes will be given to the maze solving bot. During this run the maze solving bot can explore the entire maze to find the positions of

the nodes and the bridges. At the end of the dry run the maze solving bot must give a video/audio signal. If the time for the dry run exceeds 4 minutes, then the extra time taken for dry run will be deducted from the allotted run time of 4 minutes. No advantage will be given if the dry run ends before 4 minutes. At the end of dry run the bot will be placed at the starting point. The dry run will be autonomous. The participants are not allowed to touch the bot during the dry run. NOTE No penalty will be awarded during a dry run if the bot crosses a node. 2. The bot must work strictly on the principle of line following. 3. At the start of the task, the bot will be placed at the starting point. Only 1 member from the team is allowed to be near the game field while starting the bot. 4. Starting Procedure The bot must be started by only 1 onboard switch. The starting procedure of the bot should be simple and should not involve giving bot any manual force or impulse in any direction. Teams can have a separate onboard switch for restart. This switch will have to be shown before the run to the judges. 5. If any part of the block is in contact with the autonomous bot, the autonomous bot is said to carry that block. During the run, the bot can carry only one block. 6. The organisers will start measuring time as soon as the front edge of the bot crosses the check line. 7. Checkpoint There will be one checkpoint during the run. Once the teams bot completely crosses the check-line after depositing the first block, it will be counted as a checkpoint. 8. Restarts A maximum of 3 restarts will be given to a team. No penalty will be awarded for a restart. During a restart, the bot will have to be restarted by putting it back on the starting point and turned on again on the signal of the judges. In a restart, the timer will not be set back to zero. During a restart, a contestant must not feed information about the grid to the bot. However, contestants are allowed to: adjust sensors (gain, position etc.) and

make repairs. However, a contestant may not alter a bot in a manner that alters its weight (e.g. removal of a bulky sensor array or switching to lighter batteries to get better speed). The organisers shall arbitrate. If before the checkpoint, a team opts for a restart; then the bot will be restarted by putting it back on the starting point and the first deposited block will also be placed back at its starting point. If after the checkpoint, a team opts for a restart, the first block that has been deposited wont be placed back at its starting point. If the team opts for a restart after the second block is deposited, then the bot will be restarted by putting it back on the starting point and the second deposited block will also be placed back at its starting point. 9. Stop The team can end their run whenever they wish before 4 minutes. However, the time taken by the team will be considered as 240 seconds. 10. Both the blocks are identical. The bot can deposit any of the blocks in any of the zones. 11. A block is said to be deposited if any part of the block is in contact with the block deposit zone. Note that bot should deposit both the blocks in the two different deposit zones. 12. The team will be given 1 minute time before the run for calibration. 13. During the run if the bot loses contact with the block and the block lies somewhere else, the block will be picked up and put back to its starting point. 14. General Rules Team members will not be allowed to handle the blocks. Only organisers are allowed to handle the blocks in any situation. The team will be disqualified if the blocks are handled within the arena without the approval of the organisers. Only 1 member of the team is allowed to handle the bot. Participants are not allowed to keep anything inside the arena other than the bot. Laptops/personal computers are not allowed near the arena. Other Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, etc. devices must be switched off. The organisers hold the right to check for these devices and their usage. The organisers may stop any bot at any time if they feel that it is performing, or is about to perform, any action that is dangerous or hazardous to people or equipment. No bot is allowed to use any flammable, combustible, explosive or potentially dangerous processes. The time measured by the organisers will be final and will be used for scoring the

teams. Time measured by any contestant by any other means is not acceptable for scoring. In case of any disputes / discrepancies, the organisers' decision will be final and binding. The organisers reserve the rights to change any or all of the above rules as they deem fit. Change in rules, if any will be highlighted on the website and notified to the registered teams.

Judging
Scoring System
1. The competition time for a team start from the moment the front edge of the bot crosses the check line. 2. Teams will be awarded 50 points for completing the first checkpoint. 3. The teams will be awarded 50 points for depositing the second block and an extra 100 points for returning to the starting point after depositing the 2 nd block. 4. The timer will stop as soon as the bot finishes the task. 5. The task is considered to be finished when both the blocks are deposited in the zones and the bot returns to its starting point or the time for the task reaches 4 minutes OR the team wishes to stop the run. 6. Every time the bot crosses a node it incurs a penalty of 25 points. The teams score will be equal to: Score = (240 T) +(50*C)+(50*B2)+(100*F) P T=the total time taken to complete the task in seconds or T equals 240 if the team is unable to complete the entire task in 4 minutes. P=Penalty C=Number of checkpoints cleared B2= 1 if the teams deposits the second block 0 otherwise F = 1 if the autonomous bot goes back to the starting point after depositing both the blocks 0 otherwise

Special Cases If a team stops their run before 4 minutes and Before checkpoint, then Score = (240-240) + (50*0) + (50*0) + (100*0) - P After checkpoint 1 but before depositing block 2, then Score = (240-240) + (50*1) + (50*0) + (100*0) - P After depositing block 2, then Score = (240-240) + (50*1) + (50*1) + (100*0) - P

Certificate Policy
The top 3 teams emerging from this competition will be awarded a Certificate of Excellence. All teams which will have a score > 0 will be awarded a Certificate of Participation.

Team Specification
A team may consist of (a maximum of) 4 participants. Students from different educational institutes can form a team.

Eligibility
All students with a valid identity card of their respective educational institutes are eligible to participate in Nexus: Behind Enemy Lines.