This code competed in the 2015 Zero Robotics season for Paly Robotics Zero.
Zero Robotics is a programming competition run by MIT and NASA that challenges students to create autonomous programs to control SPHERES robots through space. Every year, a challenge is released and teams have five weeks to design, develop, and debug their code. Teams start by creating versions of their code to run in a two-dimensional environment. All functional designs move on to the 3D round, which places teams on a leaderboard where they will compete their code in an expanded three-dimensional environment. The top teams form alliances of three and advance on to the Alliance round, which contains a final, more elaborate version of the game. The top alliances will move on the ISS Final Round and compete their code on SPHERES on the International Space Station. Teams that do not make the ISS Finals compete in the Virtual Round where finalists play a final match on the ISS. For more information about Zero check out zerorobotics.mit.edu
The 2015 game was SpySpheres, and focused around locating and taking pictures of the opposing SPHERE. Points are scored by taking and uploading pictures to Earth or by acquiring special point block objects. The field is divided into a light, dark, and gray zone which are constantly on the move. Being in the dark zone protects your SPHERE from pictures, but will rapidly drain energy. The light zone makes allows for energy acquistion but exposes your SPHERE to picture. The gray zone both exposes the SPHERE and drains energy, making it a major obstacle. Additional game elements include energy blocks to replenish energy, mirrors which can be activated to block and pictures for a set duration, and fuel that limits the movements your SPHERE can make.
Our 2D round code was very simple and uses the built in api functions to capture the three scoring objects. Having scored a single point, it completed its objective, scoring one point against a blank opponent, and advanced us to the 3d round.
#3D Round: L8KI Our 3D round code, L8KI, sought to minimize the time spent in the light zone through minimal usage of energy and heavy prioritization of the mirrors. L8KI has a linear state machine that advances through various stages of the game, changing its behavior to match the position of the light and dark zones. L8KI was set to move very quickly to secure contested item blocks at the beginning of the game and as such acted in a very fuel-efficient manner for the rest of the game. L8KI placed 57th out of 128 and advanced us to the Alliance round.
#Alliance Round: ZiRconiuM_Paly_Eagles For the Alliance Round we were partenered with ZiRconiuM from Rome, Italy and Space Eagles from El Segundo, California. Each team in the alliance made a separate version of the code and it was decided that each would be tested on the leaderboard and the highest performing one would be used as the official submission. PalyRoboticsA was the first version of our code and was used a weighted state machine as a central decision making unit. Due to memory limitations, PalyRoboticsA had limited motion and was ultimately scraped for PalyRoboticsF, which acted similar to L8KI and attempted to minimize exposure to picutres. By matching the velocity of the dark zone and using the mirror to move between dark zones, PalyRoboticsF was able to reduce the picture exposure to a single passage of the light zone. PalyRoboticsF also used a dyanmic fuel system that would act more aggresively when the SPHERE had more fuel, always ending the game with ~2% of the final fuel capacity. Included as well are the top code submissions from ZiRconiuM and Space Eagles. SpaceEaglesD was the final submission of the alliance and placed in 22nd of 28, not qualifying us for the ISS Finals