Bringing additional team members and mentors to RoboCup in Salvador

[Raymond Sheh]

Hi All! 

Some qualified teams have recently informed us that they are unable to come to Brazil. We know that in the past, some teams have had to leave team members behind due to the 6 team members and 2 mentors rule. As we have already allocated space for teams who will no longer be joining us, we have had a discussion among the RMRC committee and would like to offer all teams the opportunity to bring a limited number of additional team members and mentors.

The team member limit rule was originally put in place for 3 reasons: limited space in the paddock, fairness to teams who have varying levels of resources, and crowding of the competition arena area. While the paddock space limit is not as substantial an issue this year, we still need to address the other two reasons.

Therefore, we ask that every team that brings 6+X team members (X > 0) make at least X people available for volunteer duties, such as building/reconfiguring the arenas, tallying up scores, taking overall photos/videos of all teams, and helping with other logistics. (These don't have to be the same X people throughout the competition.) Similarly, we ask that teams with 2+Y mentors also make Y mentors available to help as necessary (again, this doesn't have to be the same Y people throughout the competition).

We also ask that for safety, teams limit the overall number of people in the competition arena area (the exact number will depend on the organizers on the ground as we don't know the final layout just yet) with their extra people in the paddock or the public area.

Please contact us at in...@rrl-rmrc.org by the 23rd of May if you are interested in having additional members of your team join us in Brazil, above the limit of 6 students and 2 mentors. (Note that the no more than 1 mentor per 3 students rule is still in effect.) We will see how we can accommodate the extra members, depending on the number of requests across all teams.

Cheers!

- Raymond

On behalf of the RMRC Committee.