Rars Race Meet Rules


These are the rules and procedures for the races that are hosted by Ralph Scott. These rules are subject to change at any time, but any such changes will be announced to the mailing list a reasonable time before they go into effect. Anyone else can also host races, and they are free to design their own set of rules if they wish. The following are general rules that apply to all the races. For each race there will be an announcement that will detail any special requirements for that race.

Entries will be received by e-mail, directed to Ralph Scott <rscott@NetUSA.Net>. The entries are of course, robot driver functions. They may be in source code, either ANSI C or C++.  

Robots may read a data file. Hence, the entry may consist of two files, the program file and the data file. The filename for these two files must be the same, except for .dat extension on the data file. The robot file will have the extension .cpp or .c.

The robot driver function name should be identical to the name string contained in the program. There should be no more than eight characters in the name, and it must follow the usual C/C++ naming rules. Therefore, if we have a robot driver named "Charlie" the name of its function would be Charlie(), and it would be in a file named CHARLIE.CPP and if it reads a data  file the file would be named CHARLIE.DAT. The filename should not differ from the robot name by  anything more than a sequence number at the end, and the lack of case distinctions.

There are some information requirements for the first few lines of the program file. The first few lines of every robot driver must have the following:

  1. The filename, your full name, your e-mail address, and your robot's name.
  2. What races you want to enter. You can say all, or all oval track,
    or just one date, for example. (Just be clear.)
  3. Whether or not you want me to keep the source confidential.
  4. Tell me if your program needs to read a data file.

The filename must change for each new version of your software. The easiest way is just to append a sequence number, so when BURNS.CPP is changed it becomes BURNS1.CPP, and then BURNS2.CPP, etc. The robot name and the function name should not change. For example, they could remain "Burns" and Burns(). Of course you may rename all three if you want to, and then the filename should be the same as the robot name and function name.

If your robot reads a data file it must be sent at the same time as the robot file. You must send a new data file when you send a new robot. They should always be sent in pairs to help keep me from using the wrong data file. It would be best if your data file began with its own name, and the robot checks it when it reads it, but I won't require that. You may send a new data file to go with an old robot, but also send a text file giving its file name, so that I know for certain which robot it goes with.

The software version to be used for each race meet will be announced in advance. It will generally be the lastest version, or the one just before that one. Needless to say, the programs must compile and link with that version.

Entries must be received by 1:00 PM, U.S East Coast time, on the day of the competition. If the net is slow, too bad, so send them as early as possible. It is better if I receive them several days early, in case there are any problems with compilation, linking, or execution. (I will inform you A.S.A.P.) All problems must be corrected before the 1:00 PM deadline. Finally, I won't accept any new entries prior to one week before the competition. However, if I already have your robot from a previous race you don't have to submit it again. I will use the information in your robot program to know in which races it should compete. Only one robot per author will be allowed to compete, so if you have sent me more than one make it clear which one is the entry.

Any robots that cause run-time problems with any part of the software, including the other robots, will be disqualified. Timin's judgement will be final here. In particular, check every division to ensure that the denominator will never be zero. The same applies to certain mathematical functions that can have illegal arguments, such as sqrt(). If you allocate RAM, with "new" or malloc(), be sure to do it only once, even if there are multiple races. (We can't have you accumulating more RAM with each race!) Also check for un-initialized variables that can cause seemingly random behaviour.

Points will be awarded as follows for each race: 

1st - 10 2nd - 6 3rd - 4 4th - 3 5th - 2 6th - 1

This point system will be used both for deciding the winners of one race meet with multiple races, and also for accumulating over a period of many months. When there are multiple races the winning places will be based on the point total for all races. When the race meet consists of only one race the points will be added to the robot author's accumulating score. For multiple races, another set of points will be awarded to the best six robots of the day, and these will be accumulated for the longer term. Hence, for each race meet, someone will add 10 points to his long term total, someone will add 6 points, and so on.

Robot code should not make any direct DOS or BIOS calls, nor access memory in any strange ways. No peripheral hardware may be accessed, with the possible exception of disk reading during initialization (but see next paragraph). Robots may use the "extern" keyword to access any data that they can find, but may not alter such data. Any robot driver function that causes any problems with any other part of the software will simply not be used. Each robot must use CPU sparingly, so that race can be run at realistic speed, and no slower.
Race directors's judgement will be final in this matter.