First draft of Restaurant 2026

[TKang-P]

Description

Updates for Restaurant 2026
To encourage teams to use barman rather than being stuck in the middle of the restaurant.

• increased the time and count to instruct the Barman from one minute for the task to two minutes per order.
• add some examples of instructions
• reduced the penalty score of "Being guided to a table"
• add penalty "Asking for directional confirmation" due to no awareness

I didn't include the barman's guidance/pointing procedure that automatically executed after 1 minute.
Because it will not change the robot's behavior and only make it look worse.

[adamgolding1]

I think this looks ok, just a minor adjustment to replace the term Deus ex Machina to be consistent with new terminology

[SparkRibeiro21]

Hi, @TKang-P , yesterday i had some time to re-watch some of the RoboCup stream of the Restaurant task and my notes from our first RoboCup, and I think we should clarify a couple of things:

1. Where is the robot facing, when the task starts (i understood from past competitions that the referee forces the robot to be facing the customers, but that is not stated anywhere on the task). This clarification is important since a lot of the robots can't even find a customer because they start rotating endlessly. This happens in my opinion, because teams do not know where they are facing. The only clarification is this: "\item The robot starts next to the \emph{Kitchen-bar}. It is a designated table located near the restaurant's kitchen."

2. Also I think there is a problem with the point system, did we remove teams getting points when they can pick the objects from the barman table? The way it is right now, it is just a penalty if we ask for a handover but no points are given if teams can pick objects from the barman table. However, for placing in customer tables teams get points for placing objects on the table and penalties if asking customers to take objects from the tray. I think we should add the points for picking. Something like:
   \scoreitem[2]{200}{Grab the requested items from the kitchen-bar}

3. I think we should increase the Deus Ex Machina penalties:
   \penaltyitem[4]{50}{Asking the Barman to handover object to the robot}
   \penaltyitem[4]{50}{Guest needing to take the object from a tray or the robot's hand}
   This way teams get 100 (200-2*50) points for literally asking people to place or grab the objects from the robot. Teams already have points communicating the order to the barman in a different scoring item, so these points are just for saying a sentence and no effort in picking. This seems very unfair because teams who attempt to pick will only get 50 more points per object than teams who don't attempt to pick. Picking in this environment is both risky and time consuming. I would increase these penalties to 100. So that these cancel out all the points received. Making this much more fair to teams who attempt picking.

[SparkRibeiro21]

please check the previous comment

[TKang-P]

Apply feedback:

• Fix typos
• Clarify robot facing direction at start
• Add points for picking
• Increase penalties for skipping autonomy

[SparkRibeiro21]

Awesome :)

[LeroyR]

Suggested change

	\item The robot may use up to two minutes to instruct the \textit{Professional Barman} per oreder.
	\item The robot may use up to two minutes to instruct the \textit{Professional Barman} per order.

[ARTenshi]

The term "facing the customer seating area" is ambiguous and potentially misleading because the robot’s field of view is limited. Even if the robot starts facing a few tables, customers may be seated at any table, including those outside its initial field of vision.

The starting position is usually next to the counter that may or may not be facing the costumers area.

[SparkRibeiro21]

The term "facing the customer seating area" is ambiguous and potentially misleading because the robot’s field of view is limited. Even if the robot starts facing a few tables, customers may be seated at any table, including those outside its initial field of vision.

The starting position is usually next to the counter that may or may not be facing the costumers area.

The term "facing the customer seating area" is anything but ambiguous. There is an area where customers can be sitting...

The goal of this update is to provide information to teams of what happens in competitions but is not in the rule book. The starting position in not "usually" next to the counter, it has to be always next to the counter because this is stated in the rule book, any competition that failed to do so, is not following the rule book.

Facing the customers area is what happens at every competition, RoboCup 2023, 2024 and 2025 have been so. The goal of this, is that this "unwritten rule" is stated in the rule book for clarity and transparency. Not to be a rule which only teams who have previously been in a competition know about.

[ARTenshi]

The starting position in not "usually" next to the counter, it has to be always next to the counter because this is stated in the rule book, any competition that failed to do so, is not following the rule book.

As long as you can guarantee that the counter and the tables will be arranged in a way that satisfies both conditions (“next to the counter” and “facing customers”), I’m fine with it. Otherwise, the robots may find the customers but won’t know where the counter is!