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The Temple of Doom

PiDrogen about to take on the 2019 Travellator (courtesy of Christopher Parrot)

Aim of the challenge

In a test of your robot’s general abilities, and your driving, you must navigate around The Temple of Doom (the Obstacle Course) containing several fiendish traps, snags and puzzles.

Control Method

Remote control.

Time Limit

5 minutes

Rules

  • The course will not be revealed until the day of the competition.
  • All obstacles must be attempted.
  • You may skip obstacles after first attempting them, but you will not gain points for skipped obstacles.
  • You are allowed to attempt the challenge up to three times within the time limit.

Ranking and Points

  • The fastest single time taken to fully complete the obstacle course out of three possible runs will be ranked and awarded points according to the Formula Scoring System.

Additional Points

  • 160 points will be awarded for each of the 7 obstacles successfully completed on your fastest run.
  • 110 additional points will be awarded for each run in which you negotiate all obstacles successfully. (i.e. a ‘clean’ drive with no rescues and no skipped obstacles).

Penalties

  • For each skipped obstacle, your overall time will be increased by 30 seconds.
  • Rescues of your robot are penalty-free if you’d like to re-attempt an obstacle to get the points. This, of course, comes at the expense of time.

Hints

  • You must not walk on the course.
  • You will be able to see the course as you come into the Pi Wars venue – this will be your first opportunity to study it, so take as much time as you can!
  • Position yourself in a place where you can see the whole course before you start your attempt.
  • You are allowed to (and may need to!) walk around the sides of the course during the run.
  • Top-heavy robots may have difficulties on some of the obstacles; keep your centre of gravity low.
  • Good ground clearance may be advantageous.
  • Robots with good grip and the ability to drive up slopes have done well on this challenge in the past.

Ask Questions and Discuss

There are a number of ways you can discuss this challenge and the competition in general.