Current Competition

Competition Overview

This year's competition will be a virtual competition focusing on programming a drone through the help of DroneBlocks. Due to the current COVID situation, we have decided to shift ARC to a virtual format that will allow students to continue to participate in ARC activities without compromising their health. The competition is designed such that the students can collaborate virtually while taking part in aerospace-related activities. There are no separate regions in this year's competition, teams will compete with other teams across the nation! The competition format is the following:

  1. Autonomous: The UAV will be required to complete two autonomous missions: an aerobatics challenge and an autonomous mission challenge.
  2. Semi-Autonomous: Unfortunately, we have decided to cancel the semi-autonomous portion for the 2020/21 school year.
  3. Presentation: Teams will demonstrate their understanding of the UAV using core aerospace engineering principles. Creativity is encouraged in their design of the UAV and plan for completing the flight missions; this is where teams can showcase their work.

The competition will be centered around the use of the Tello drone. Teams are not required to purchase Tello drones; however, are highly encouraged. Teams that not purchase the Tello drones will have an opportunity to test their code live in different sessions throughout the year. Additional details will be released in January. 

Registration

Registration is CLOSED

There will be a $100 fee that will need to be paid before the registration. This will give teams full DroneBlocks access as well as fund the prize money and competition costs.

Schools that participated last year will be eligible to participate free of cost.

Schedule

Dec. 11th 2020: Registration opens

Jan. 26th 2021: Competition begins

Feb. 14th 2021: Registration Closes/Registration fee DUE

Feb 5th 2021: Getting Started with Python + Quadcopter design lecture

Feb 19th 2021: Office Hours

March 3rd 2021: (Optional) Tello drone test session: Code due

March 5th 2021: Python + Tello Design Iteration Example

March 15th 2021: (Optional) Tello drone test session: Code due

March 19th 2021: Office Hours

March 31st 2021: (Optional) Tello drone test session: Code due

April 9th 2021: Office Hours

April 15th 2021: (Optional) Last day for Integration Testing Submission

April 16th 2021: Code and presentation due

Week of April 28th 2021: Zoom Presentations with Teams/Judging of code

May 10th 2021: Winners announced 

Rulebook

The rulebook can be found here: Rule Book

Submission Forms

You can find all the needed submission links here. Please follow the instructions in the Getting Started guide.
Tello Drone Session Test #1
Tello Drone Session Test #2
Tello Drone Session Test #3
Integration Testing
The final submission link for both the presentation and the code will be released in April.

Resources

You can find all material and recordings of office hours/tutorials in the Google Drive folder here: Resources Folder
In particular, the Getting Started guide should be of the starting point for all teams: Getting Started Guide

Communication

This year, we will heavily rely on the use of Slack to communicate to teams. The ARC slack will be released in Janary. Before January, teams can ask followup questions regarding the rulebook by emailing aero.robotics.comp@gmail.com 

Prize

1st Place: $500

2nd Place: $250

3rd Place: $125

FAQ: