MaRTian Task Race Invitation

Dear Conference Attendees,

RTSS hosts this year a programming competition aimed mainly at PhD students. Within this competition teams had to program a robot control which guides this robot through unknown terrain on the martian surface to find water before their competitor does (the spoils go always to the first). Due to a solar flare during launch the robots have very limited sensoric input and thus have to navigate with a combination of GPS, bumpers and ultrasonic sensors to detect obstacles and avoid falling into a ravine on the surface. As we could not find sufficient funds to hold the competition with real robots on the martian surface, the teams will compete on a simulator, which will project a visualisation of what's going on on a screen.

You are kindly invited to join us for the races and cheer the teams at 4pm on December 5th at the ERTIS workshop in the conference hotel. The competition is held in several rounds to  establish the winner of the contest. Prices for the winner's of the competition sponsored by the University of Pittsburgh and National ICT Australia Ltd will be awarded at the conference reception in the evening.

More information about the competition can be found here. Hope to see you all there!

--Stefan M. Petters