This is a brief description of the gameboard and rules for the Attack of the Drones contest that our robot was designed to compete in.

Playing Table

Start

Robots start in the middle of the table on the areas designated for the "White Team" and the "Black Team." Colored balls are placed in the indicated positions and are used for voting and scoring the match.

Voting

The two colored areas on the top and bottom of the table are for voting. One is for green and one is for red. At the beginning of the round, the score is tied at 0-0, and the 'winning' color is randomly chosen. Each ball placed into a bin, regardless of color, is counted as a vote for that color. At the end of the round, voting determines the value of the balls. The 'winning' color is worth +2 points and the 'losing' color is worth -1 points. In the event of a tied nonzero vote, the 'winning' color will be the color that first reached that score.

Scoring

Points are scored for each ball that is within a scoring area, the 6 colored regions on the sides of the board. The number of red and green balls are totalled individually, and the final score is determined by the voting total. The team with the higher score at the end of the match wins the match. In the event of a tied score, robots will 'win' if they have changed the score in their favor at some point during the match. Robots cannot 'win' by default if they do not put any balls in their own bin at any time during the 60 second round.