Robot Game Missions

Incredible engineering accomplishments like space travel come about in steps. And many huge, progressive sub-goals need to be met before we can forever leave earth and live to tell about it!

The robot needs to send payload rockets (carts) rolling down the space travel ramp. The first cart is preset and ready to go, but the robot needs to load the other two from base.

• Vehicle payload rolled down the space travel ramp: 22
• Supply payload rolled down the space travel ramp: 14
• Crew payload rolled down the space travel ramp: 10
• Possible scores: 0, 10, 14, 22, 24, 32, 36, 46

• For each roll, the cart must be independent by the time it reaches the first track connection ramp. > Note: Only allowed method. Must be oberserved by the referee.
• Start each payload clearly rolling down the space travel ramp. > Note: Only allowed method. Must be oberserved by the referee.
• As a mission requirement in any mission, the word “independent” means “not in con-tact with any of your equipment. > As long as the cart clearly rolls independently past the first track connection, it’s okay if it doesn’t roll all the way east.

Solar panels in space are a great source of energy for a space station in the inner solar system, but since things in space is always moving, aiming the panels takes some thought.

Solar panels need to be angled toward or away from you, depending on strategy and conditions.

• Both solar panels are angled toward the same field: 22 (for both teams)
• Your solar panel is angled toward the other team’s field: 18
• Possible scores: 0, 18, 22, 40 as shown below and seen from above your north border, facing north.

• Results must be visible at the end of the match.

It is amazingly expensive to send heavy stuff like construction material into space, so sci-entists and engineers are instead learning how to print what they need in space, using available extraterrestrial elements.

The robot needs to get a regolith core sample and place it into the 3D printer, which will cause the 2 × 4 brick to pop out. The ejected 2 × 4 brick can then be delivered elsewhere for more points.

• The 2 × 4 brick ejected and completely in the northeast planet area: 22 OR
• The 2 × 4 brick ejected and not completely in the northeast planet area: 18
• Possible scores: 0, 18, 22

• Results must be visible at the end of the match.
• Eject the 2 × 4 brick by placing a regolith core sample into the 3D printer. > Only allowed method. Must be oberserved by the referee.

For rovers in other worlds, getting stuck is definitely not okay! Teams of rovers can help each other, but a lone rover needs to be very careful.

The robot or whatever agent-craft it sends out needs to cross the craters model completely, by driving directly over it. Not near it. Not around it.

• Robot or agent-craft crossed the craters model completely: 20
• Possible scores: 0, 20

• All weight-bearing features of the crossing equipment must cross completely between the towers. > Only allowed method. Must be oberserved by the referee.
• Crossing must be from east to west, and make it completely past the flattened gate. > Only allowed method. Must be oberserved by the referee.

To live away from earth, it would help if we were good at detecting and mining resources under the surfaces of other planets, moons, asteroids, and even comets.

The robot needs to get all the core samples out of the core site model, then it has options for what to do with them as described here, and in mission M03.

• Move all four core samples so they are no longer touching the axle that held them in the core site model: 16
• Place the gas core sample so it is touching the mat, and completely in the lander’s target circle: 12 OR
• Place the gas core sample completely in base: 10
• Place the water core sample so it is supported only by the food growth chamber: 8
• Possible Scores: 0, 16, 24, 26, 28, 34, 36

• Results must be visible at the end of the match.

Space stations allow us to learn about and even practice living in space, but improved technology and new international partners require modules to be easily interchangeable.

The robot needs to remove and insert modules among the habitation hub’s port holes.

• Move the cone module completely into base: 16
• Insert the tube module into the habitation hub port, west side: 16
• Transfer/insert the dock module into the habitation hub port, east side: 14
• Possible scores: 0, 16, 32, 46

• Results must be visible at the end of the match.
• Inserted modules must not be touching anything except the habitation hub. > Needs to be visible at the end of the match.

Space is quiet and beautiful, but with almost no heat, air, nor air pressure, it could freeze, suffocate, and boil you all at once! Help our spacewalking astronaut “Gerhard” get to safety.

The robot needs to get Gerhard’s body into the airlock chamber.

• Astronaut completely in the habitation hub’s airlock chamber: 22 OR
• Astronaut partly in the habitation hub’s airlock chamber: 18
• Possible scores: 0, 18, 22

• For this mission, the word “body” includes all parts except the loop.
• Results must be visible at the end of the match.

Though spacecraft travel crazy-fast, even the shortest trips involve a lot of time for the traveler’s body away from labor and recreation, which is bad for the heart and lungs.

The robot needs to repeatedly move one or both of the exercise machine’s handle assemblies to make the pointer advance.

• Get the pointer tip completely in orange, or partly covering either of orange’s end-borders: 22 OR
• Get the pointer tip completely in white: 20 OR
• Get the pointer tip completely in gray, or partly covering either of gray’s end-borders: 18
• Possible scores: 0, 18, 20, 22

• Advance the exercise machine’s pointer along its dial by moving one or both of the handle assemblies. > Only allowed method. Must be oberserved by the referee.
• Results must be visible at the end of the match.

In zero-gravity, everything’s easy to move, and you couldn’t fall “down” even if you tried, so astronauts need movement resistance – two hours a day in fact, just to keep muscle and bone density.

The robot needs to lift the strength bar to scoring height.

• Lift the strength bar so the tooth-strip’s 4th hole comes at least partly into view as shown: 16
• Possible scores: 0, 16

• Results must be visible at the end of the match.

Gardening is easy, right? You just need a truckload of rich soil, some rain, sun, fertilizer, helpful bugs, CO₂ and a rake but what if you were orbiting Neptune, in a room the size of a minivan?

Move the push bar the right distance at the right speed, to get into the green scoring range.

• Spin the food growth chamber’s colors so the gray weight is DROPPED after green, but before tan, by moving the push bar: 16
• Possible scores: 0, 16

• Result must be visible at the end of the match.
• Spin the food growth chamber’s colors must be spun by moving the push bar. > Only allowed method. Must be oberserved by the referee.

Soon after a launch, rocket engines often separate away from spacecraft by design, but that’s long before the spacecraft leaves the pull of gravity. So why doesn’t the spacecraft fall back to earth?

The robot needs to impact the strike pad hard enough to keep the spacecraft from dropping back down.

• Get the spacecraft to go so fast and high that it stays up, by pressing/hitting the strike pad: 24
• Possible scores: 0, 24

• Result must be visible at the end of the match.
• Activate the spacecraft by pressing/hitting the strike pad. > Only allowed method. Must be oberserved by the referee.

If a satellite doesn’t have the correct velocity and distance from earth, it can fall, drift away, fail to function, or get destroyed by debris. Propulsive adjustments need to be performed with precision.

The robot needs to move one or more satellites to the outer orbit.

• Move any part of a satellite on or above the area between the two lines of the outer orbit: 8 each
• Possible scores: 0, 8, 16, 24

• Result must be visible at the end of the match.

A space telescope is astonishing, but it can’t beat the accessibility and simplicity of a college or science museum observatory – that is, if you know how and where to point it.

Rotate the observatory to a precise direction.

• Get the pointer tip completely in orange, or partly covering either of orange’s end-borders: 20 OR
• Get the pointer tip completely in white: 18 OR
• Get the pointer tip completely in gray, or partly covering either of gray’s end-borders: 16
• Possible Scores: 0, 16, 18, 20

• Result must be visible at the end of the match.

The chance of a “serious” meteoroid hitting earth in our lifetime is extremely low, but it’s not zero, and the devastation could truly wipe us out. How will scientists and engineers keep us safe?

From west of the free-line, send one or both meteoroids independently to the meteoroid catcher. “Independently”: see also M01, Section “Scoring Requirements”.

• Meteoroid(s) touch(es) the mat in the center section of the meteoroid catcher: 12 each
• Meteoroid(s) touch(es) the mat in either side section of the meteoroid catcher: 8 each
• Possible scores: 0, 8, 12, 16, 20, 24

• Result must be visible at the end of the match.
• The meteoroids need to be sent over the free-line to touch the mat in the meteoroid catcher > Only allowed method. Must be oberserved by the referee.
• The meteoroids must be hit/released while they are clearly and completely west of the free-line. > Only allowed method. Must be oberserved by the referee.
• While between hit/release and scoring position, the meteoroid must be clearly independent. > Only allowed method. Must be oberserved by the referee.
• If ever the ring-set meteoroid is off its ring, you may remove the ring from the field by hand. This is a special exception to the rules.

Our Lander doesn’t have working parachutes, thrusters, or cushions, but one important feature is realistic … it’s very fragile.

Get the lander to one of its targets intact, or at least get it to base.

• Move the lander to be intact, touching the mat, and completely in its target circle: 22 OR
• Move the lander to be intact, touching the mat, and completely in the northeast planet area: 20 OR
• Move both parts of the lander completely into base: 16
• Possible scores: 0, 16, 20, 22

• Result must be visible at the end of the match.
• The lander is “intact” if its parts are connected by at least two of its four tan location axles.

• If you interrupt the robot: minus 3 each time
• Possible penalty totals: −18, −15, −12, −9, −6, −3, 0

• Interruption needs to be observed by the referee.
• Upon penalty, the referee will place one penalty disc in the southeast triangle as a permanent interruption marker.
• You can get up to six such penalties.
• If a penalty disc comes off the triangle, it is simply returned, with no effect on score.