The official World Wide Web pages for the competition are your source for all information concerning rules, interpretations, and information updates regarding the competition. In anticipation of the 2000 International Aerial Robotics Competition, the official rules and application form will be obtained from the official World Wide Web pages and will not be mailed to potential competitors. If you have received these rules as a hard copy from some other source, be advised that the official source of information can be found at:
The application form is available electronically here. All submissions must be in English. The completed application form is not considered an official entry until a check or money order for 250 U.S. Dollars is received by mail on or before March 2, 2000. (Note: the $250 application fee is completely refundable on the day of the competition if your team's aerial robot flies for more than 60 seconds during which it picks up at least one item. This fee has been instituted to discourage teams from applying that are not serious competitors).
A brief concept outline describing the air vehicle must be submitted for safety review by the competition organizers (the application form provides space for this). The organizers will either confirm that the submitting team is a qualified competitor, or will suggest safety improvements that must be made in order to qualify.
A VHS video tape of your vehicle flying either autonomously or under remote human pilot control must be supplied by March 2, 2000 to continue to be considered as a serious entry.
The competition will be conducted in conjunction with the collegiate Millennial Event at the HAMMER facility in Washington state. Winners will be recognized during a ceremony to follow the competition, in press releases, and in the media.
If your team does not qualify under the above definition, it may qualify for the "Collegiate Class Millennial Event." which will be held concurrently with the High School/Open Class Event under different rules.
During the construction of a geothermal power plant near Athena Greco, a sink hole developed revealing what appeared to be an ancient burial site. Archaeologists summoned to the site determined that the power plant excavators had broken into a mass grave dating back to 425 BC. Soon after the discovery, the archaeologists and members of the construction crew fell ill, at first with strong fevers accompanied by redness and burning of the eyes, followed by vomiting of blood. Within 48 hours, victims' skin became severely ulcerated and bleeding was observed from all openings of the body. No personnel having direct contact with the site have survived longer than 72 hours.
A team from the CDZ and the US Army Medical Research Academy for Infectious Disease (USAMRAID) set up a field laboratory where they determined the cause of the epidemic to be a new strain of the Ebola virus. Dr. Jackson Gilbertman of the CDZ has reported that this is the most lethal strain of the virus investigated to date. In an interview earlier this week, Dr. Gilbertman stated that, "This is not really a new mutated strain of Ebola, but most likely an ancient strain that has been locked away in the Athenan tombs for almost twenty five hundred years."
What is most disconcerting, is the finding that this "new" (ancient) strain, dubbed "Ebola-A425", exhibits increasing evidence for possible airborne transmission. According to Dr. Gilbertman, "Researchers from USAMRAID have done formal aerosol experiments in which as little as 400 plague-forming units of Ebola-A425 caused a fatal disease in monkeys within four to five days. All exposed monkeys developed Ebola-related pneumonia, and virus particles were found in many different areas of the respiratory system."
To compound matters, members of the geothermal power plant construction crew who did not have direct contact with either the initial victims or the site itself, have contracted the disease. A 25 km quarantine radius around the site has been ordered by the government. No one is allowed to enter or leave this perimeter in order to contain the outbreak. National Guard units from the Greco Ministry of Defense have been sent to the quarantine zone to contain rioting that is on-going in the cities of Phaetalos and Necros which reside within the perimeter.
Three million cubic meters of soil has been air-lifted to the site and dropped from the air to seal the sink hole, though many contaminated cultural items remain scattered about the adjacent construction site. The Greco government has appealed through the United Federation of Nations for assistance in gathering these contaminated items for disposal. Your mission is to create a flying robot vehicle that can identify small contaminated objects and quickly remove them to a specially designed hazardous waste container which exists at what remains of the USAMRAID field laboratory.
Aerial reconnaissance shows that implements used to distill the Ebola-A425 virus during laboratory testing are randomly scattered on the ground near the specially designed hazardous waste container-- apparently discarded during the ensuing panic. The pure form of the virus contaminating these sample vessels and laboratory implements is needed for further study and can not be destroyed, as it represents the only original concentrated form of the virus that has not been buried or mutated in human hosts.
Prior to disinfecting the surface of the earth around the site by means of a controlled fuel-air explosion, you must collect the sample vessels and laboratory implements, securing them in the fireproof, blast resistant hazardous waste container located at the field laboratory. Once sealed, the container will survive the heat and overpressure produced by the fuel-air explosion, but all remaining Ebola-A425 outside the container will be destroyed. The waste container and its contents can then be moved to the CDZ in Atlanta, Georgia for further study.
Other items may be found in the vicinity which are not of interest. Only those items showing high concentrations of the pure virus should be gathered (as indicated by the fluorescent orange paint). The sample vessels and laboratory implements will be of different sizes and weights, but all will be under 4 ounces in weight and less than two liters in volume. The composition of the items of interest will be both metallic and nonmetallic. Known objects will include, but not be limited to: styrofoam and paper drinking cups, plastic bottles, steel spoons, etc. The locations for these items will be random, unknown a priori, and will be rearranged between runs by the judges or designated competing team members. No object will be closer than one meter to the arena boundary lines.
It is hoped that teams will join together to offer their best ideas for the benefit of a single unified team, while being willing to compromise and defer to team members with specific training and skills. The most successful teams are interdisciplinary groups of dedicated engineers and scientists with backing from their organization's administration and industrial partners.
To discourage multiple entries from a single organization, all teams vying to represent that organization must submit their individual applications along with the 250 U.S. Dollar application fee by mail on or before March 2, 2000. No application will be considered valid without the fee being received by the February 1 date. Further, only one $250 application fee will be refunded on the day of the competition, and then only to the officially-designated team representing the organization provided it successfully meets the "60-second flight/one item pickup" requirement. It is therefore in the interest of all potential competitors from a single organization to form their team without the need for arbitration prior to submission of an application.
In addition to the points scored during the Static Judging ( Subjective Measures), the teams will be rank-ordered by the judges based on score. The arena starting corners and time slots will be allocated based upon the choice of the teams, with the first choice going to the highest ranked team, the next choice going to the second highest ranked team, and so on until the final time and arena starting corner remaining is assigned to the team ranking lowest based on the Subjective Measures during the Static Judging.
The points for a given round will be totaled according to the following formula:
SCORE = c - (b * 10) + [(d + e) * a] + f + g + h + i + j
The highest score accumulated by any entry after all rounds have been completed will be declared the winner.
Application Deadline ............................... March 2, 2000Fee Deadline ....................................... March 2, 2000
Practice day ....................................... Wednesday, June 28, 2000
Performance judging (i.e. "the competition") ....... Thursday, June 29, 2000
Rain-day for performance judging ................... Friday, June 30, 2000
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