Preparing for a competition

This page is a guide for the international competition under the 2026 rules. Local and regional competitions may differ, so check with your organizer. The official rules always apply.

Timeline

When	What
Throughout the year	Follow the event page and the forum, where clarifications are posted
At least 4 weeks before	Organizers give instructions for the web form to prepare the interviews
3 weeks before the first day	Deadline for the documents
Setup day	Be at the venue early for registration, interviews and the team meetings
Each round	Worlds are revealed just before the games. Programs cannot change after each round’s deadline.
After the scoring runs	Technical Challenge

Documents to submit

Templates and rubrics are on the RCJ Rescue Community Website.

Technical Description Paper (TDP). Follow the template strictly: otherwise, the score for the document is 0.
Poster, as a file and as a physical poster at the venue, no larger than A1.
Video showcasing your project.
Server-client video, new in 2026: a short video showing how you run your controller on an example map in the server-client setup.
Source code and the web form for the interviews.

Competition setup

Games run in a server-client setup: organizers run the game server and provide one RJ-45 socket, and your program runs on your computer. See Remote Controller.

Bring:

A computer with your program and all its libraries installed, and Webots R2023b
An Ethernet cable, and an adapter if your computer needs one
Your robot’s .json file, if you have a custom robot
The physical poster

OpenGL settings

Unless organizers announce otherwise, the following settings are used. They affect what the cameras see, so test with them. You can find them in the OpenGL tab of the Webots preferences.

Setting	Value
Ambient Occlusion	Low
Texture Quality	Low
Max Texture Filtering	4
Shadows	Disabled
Anti-aliasing	Disabled

Testing your robot

Run on every included world, especially world3.wbt and world4.wbt, which include fakes.
Make your own maps with the World Editor, including all four areas.
Check the whole game: does it run to the end, submit the map and return to the start in time?
Test what happens after a lack of progress.
Test on the computer you will bring, and with the OpenGL settings above.

During the competition

Only the captain and co-captain may access the competition area, unless a referee says otherwise.
The referee operates the simulation. You cannot touch game equipment after the game starts.
Mentors cannot help during the competition.
Be ready to explain your work: each team member should have a technical role and know how it works.

Final score

The final score at international competitions combines:

Part	Weight	Contents
Field score	0.6	Mean of the normalized field scores. The worst round or rounds are omitted.
Rubrics	0.2	TDP (0.6), Video (0.2), Poster (0.2)
Technical Challenge	0.2	Mini-tasks announced at the competition, solved by reprogramming your robot in limited time

Ties are resolved based on the mean of the normalized field scores. The SuperTeam Challenge is a separate event with its own award.