Have any questions? comments? concerns? Join the Feedback Call!

[RoboNation]

Anyone interested in learning more about the VRX Competition, be sure to join the Feedback Call happening THIS WEEK!

Join the RoboNation team and Technical Directors from Open Robotics and Naval Postgraduate School, Hitesh Patel, @Carlos Agüero, and brian.bingham, as they discuss the preliminary task descriptions and technical guide. If you have any questions on the competition or application process, this is the time to ask before application closes on April 7!

Fill out this Doodle poll to help us choose the best time for all the interested teams: ttps://bit.ly/2UTC8iT

REVIEW: Before this week's call, review the recently posted Task Descriptions and Technical Guide!

[Malkhan52]

Hello everyone!
I'm Malkhan Singh from India. I'm participating in RoboSub this year, also want to participate in VRX competition. I have a doubt regarding the tasks of this competition. Is everyone has to do tasks of Maritime RobotX Challenge?
Since I'm participating in RoboSub, so it would be better if I implement tasks of RoboSub in simulation for this competition.
That simulation I can also use to improve our performance in the main competition.

[JamieB]

Hi!
Team Minion at Embry-Riddle Daytona Beach has some questions regarding the VRX Competition:

• How will code be tested at competition?
• Will we be required to provide source for our code?
• How configurable is the thruster/propulsion set-up?
• What other deliverables are required for competition?
• Is the registration deadline flexible? If not, is the registration fee refundable?
• What, if any, will be the required travel for the competition?
• How is the hardware provisioning done?
• Does the simulation run on real time or simulation time?
• Will we be able to set the reference frame for the boat?
• To get hardware acceleration, we may need to have a second machine. Would this be possible?
• How will the data come through? Will it look like the actual sensor data, or will it be raw ROS data?

Thanks!

[Hitesh Patel]

Hello VRX teams,

We have scheduled a student feedback call for 03/29/2019 at 3:00 pm (Eastern Standard Time; GMT -4). Below is the link for the call.

Join Zoom Meeting

https://zoom.us/j/595667103

Kindly send me a message if you run into any issues joining the call. Thank you

[jayceHu]

good questions, you asked what I am eager to know.

[jayceHu]

Hi!
Team Minion at Embry-Riddle Daytona Beach has some questions regarding the VRX Competition:

• How will code be tested at competition?
• Will we be required to provide source for our code?
• How configurable is the thruster/propulsion set-up?
• What other deliverables are required for competition?
• Is the registration deadline flexible? If not, is the registration fee refundable?
• What, if any, will be the required travel for the competition?
• How is the hardware provisioning done?
• Does the simulation run on real time or simulation time?
• Will we be able to set the reference frame for the boat?
• To get hardware acceleration, we may need to have a second machine. Would this be possible?
• How will the data come through? Will it look like the actual sensor data, or will it be raw ROS data?

Thanks!

anyone reply these questions? I checked the documents but I can't find the answers

[brian.bingham]

All,

Here are some answers to the questions from JamieB

• How will code be tested at competition?
  Please see the Preliminary Technical Guide for more information on how the competition will be implemented. Each team's code will be run asynchronously - in batch mode - on cloud servers. Teams will have lots of opportunity to try their solutions using the exact same computational setup that will be used in the final evaluation. In general, the running of VRX will be similar to that of the NIST ARIAC competition - see ARIAC Finals 2018 description for more information. All of the technical details, including working examples and tutorials will be coming shortly.
• Will we be required to provide source for our code?
  No. There is no requirement to share your code.
• How configurable is the thruster/propulsion set-up?
  We are attempting to provide teams as much flexibility as possible, while keeping the competition within a reasonable scope.
• What other deliverables are required for competition?
  Currently the only deliverable is the software solution to the challenge tasks. We are open to allowing for other deliverables (perhaps a short description of the solution) if there is support for doing so.
• Is the registration deadline flexible? If not, is the registration fee refundable?
  I will try to get a comment from the RoboNation team on these programmatic issue.s
• What, if any, will be the required travel for the competition?
  No. The concept of the VRX is to lower the barrier to entry for teams to participate.
• How is the hardware provisioning done?
  Please see the Preliminary Technical Guide for more details. All solutions will be run on equivalent virtualized hardware. We intend to use a fairly liberal environment with plenty of resources for most reasonable solutions.
• Does the simulation run on real time or simulation time?
  The simulation runs in simulation time. The ROS libraries have functionality to use the the same simulation time as the system clock (see Clock wiki). If your solution doesn't have similar functionality you may need to either make sure to run with real-time/wall-clock = sim-time or replicate the ability to use the simulation clock for timing.
• Will we be able to set the reference frame for the boat?
  All reference frames (sensors, actuators, vehicles, etc.) will be specified in detail to allow for a clear specification of the geometry of all aspects of the solution.
• To get hardware acceleration, we may need to have a second machine. Would this be possible?
  Yes, we plan to work with the teams to make sure that the standard computing environment supports as many of the solutions as possible.
• How will the data come through? Will it look like the actual sensor data, or will it be raw ROS data?
  The interface to the sensors, actuators and task elements will be a ROS API. The outlines of this API are specified in the Preliminary Technical Guide and Task Descriptions.

Thank you for the questions.

Brian

[JamieB]

Thanks for answering our questions in the call and posting them here brian.bingham! We really appreciate the help!