Entries must be received by 8:00 GMT, the day of the
race. If the
net is slow, too bad, so send them as early as possible.
It is better if I receive them a week early, in case there are
any
problems with compilation, linking, or execution.
(I will inform you A.S.A.P.)
Any robots that cause run-time problems with any part of the software,
including the other robots, will be disqualified. Gian-Carlo's
judgement
will be final here. I may take a quick try to fix things or disable
the
offending code, but you're obviously better off making sure everything
works. 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.
Robot code should not make any direct OS 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.
Your robot should be less than 500 000 bytes in size, and be reasonable
about its memory and cpu usage.
Your robot may not crash into or hit other drivers on purpose.
If you
submit 2 robots, team tactics, like obstructing other driver, are
allowed. You may not submit two identical drivers.
To be able to check whether your submission meets these rules,
it
should be human-readable (i.e. not obfuscated).
How/What to submit
------------------
Submissions should consist of a source code file with an optional
data
file. The source code file should contain the driver function
to be entered into the contest.
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 race(s) you want to enter. You can say the track
name or
just the 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 robot driver function name should be identical or a reasonably close
match to the name string contained in the program.
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(s) should not differ from
the robot
name by anything more than a sequence number at the end, and the
lack of
case distinctions. While the name need not be less than eight
characters (it should be less than 254 however), in the interests
of
future compatibility, please show some restraint. Keep in mind
that
some operating systems have case significant filenames, so your
data
file should be named exactly as your code assumes it will be.
In the interest of bookkeeping, 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.
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.
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.
Points
------
Race points will be awarded for each race according to the Indy
car system, as supported by RARS. (you can toggle it via a conditional
define in the code) This is a change from last year in order to
see
the differences between the slower bots reflected in the scores.
Note that no qualifications are run.
They will be accumulated after each race. (No decaying or so, just
simple addition)
Additional comments
-------------------
All seasoned participants who wish to participate in the new season,
please resubmit your robots, after having checked their compatibility
with the new RARS version.
Please note that my email has changed...the sourceforge.net address
will
still work, as will the advalvas.be one, but neither have been
proven
to be very reliable in the past :(
I have updated the rules to reflect most of the problems I saw
last
year. I hope they are agreeable for everyone. They are still open
for
change, so contact me or the list if you think something should
be
changed/corrected/updated. If there are no further comments, I
will
make a usenet posting to the appropriate newsgroups with this announcement.
I'm sorry the rules are a bit late...what can I say...I've been
busy ;)
Especially for the first races there will be probably be a bit
of delay
before the results are announced too. Since the first race is in
a few
days and I have received the grand total of one submission so far,
please
don't hesitate to submit ;) Even if your driver isn't as high-performance
as you'd like, keep in mind that the first races are usually sparsely
populate, which allows you to score more points more easily.
If there are HTML-enlightened people on this list, who wouldn't
mind
keeping the web pages updated, please speak up too ;)
Gian-Carlo Pascutto c/o gcp@sjeng.org