Micro Invaders

Micro Invaders is designed for hacker teams of 2 to 4 members. Individual applications are accepted, but they are encouraged to form a team and apply.

The competition requires excellent coding skills and ambition to conquer new challenges. We will provide a simple example program that shows how the robots can be controlled through WiFi. There are no restrictions about technologies, so you can freely use your favourite programming languages. Also, there are no restrictions about how the AI should be coded, therefore, you can use machine learning or simple state-based logic. In other words, if you are confident with your coding skills, you are good to go.

Unfortunately, according to the situation of the pandemic, we are not able to accept applications from abroad for this competition. But we encourage you to follow up on our upcoming challenges in 2021

Micro Invader provides the competitors with a pre-desgined robot by us. We will provide electronics and a 3D-printable robot model. The dimension of the robot is around 10x10x5cm. 

The provided robot kit will consist of:
- 3D-printable body with tracks
- ESP32-based circuit board
- Two motors

Modification of the robot is not allowed. In other words, you are not allowed to buy more powerful motors or build a gigantic cannon for the robot.

The robots will observe the game arena through an overhead camera stream. In the competition, we are using a Rasberry Pi camera to stream the overhead view. When you are practising at home, a standard webcam works well.

Note: Updated on 05.09.

Robots should be completely autonomous during the competition. So, the robots should be able to win the match without any human intervention. If a robot breaks down, gets tilted etc. and the team wants to pull their robot out of the game arena during an ongoing round, the team points will be reduced. Otherwise, there are no technology restrictions.

There are multiple different ways to make your AI. You can use, for instance, reinforcement learning, or you can write a pure state-based AI. We will provide a Unity simulation environment that can be used to train robots with reinforcement learning. Furthermore, you can also use it as a testing platform for your AI.

The robot's heart is the custom ESP32 circuit board with a WiFi antenna. We recommend that you don't write AI logic to the circuit board – instead, you can send motor commands through WiFi from your computer. We will provide an example program that listens to motor commands from WiFi. So, you don't have to know anything about coding ESP32 boards; instead, you can focus on coding the most intelligent AI with your favourite technologies.

The game is played in a square-shaped 1.5x1.5m arena with multiple cores/balls located at the centre. Two sides of the arena will function as scoring areas, one for each team. The robots will start the match from their team's side.

Teams get points by collecting cores to their base. In the competition, cores are light and hollow balls.

There are two types of cores, positive and negative cores. Positive cores increase your points, and negative decrease your points. So, teams are trying to push negative cores to the enemy base and capture the positive ones.

One match consists of either 3 or 5 rounds. Each round lasts 3 minutes. 

When 3 minutes have passed, or all energy cores are collected, the team with the most points wins the round. Besides, if a team receives three negative cores, the team loses the round immediately. 

A team may lose points if their robot needs human assistance. For instance, if a robot gets stuck and has to be moved by hand, the team may lose points.