Welcome to the scoring and simulation web site for Mission 10 of the International Aerial Robotics Competition. Here you may experiment with different scenarios and see how the system assigns a score to your solutions. If you have any questions or suggestions, please email me (Patrick Chkoreff) at pc@fexl.com.
The following link will open the simulator in a new tab. This comes with a preloaded default scenario to give you a good example of how things work.
You may click the Edit button to change the scenario, setting the parameters which govern the mine layout and specifying a proposed path through the resulting mine field. Upon completing the path, the system will assign a score to your solution.
The field is represented by a grid of squares, each 2 feet by 2 feet. Movements within the field are specified in terms of these squares rather than specific physical dimensions. For example, when tracing a path, you say things like "move up 7 squares," rather than "move up 14 feet" or "move up 4.2672 meters."
The actual field in Huntsville Alabama is 80 feet wide by 300 feet long, which is 40 squares by 150 squares, for a total of 6000 squares of area. The field is oriented roughly North-South, so going "up" means going North.
An individual square is identified by a coordinate (x,y), where x is the column numbered 0-39 from left to right, and y is the row numbered 0-149 from bottom to top. So the lower-left square of the field is at (0,0), and the upper-right square of the field is at (39,149).
In the simulator, mines laid out on the field are shown in red. Note that we make no distinction as to where an actual mine resides within a 2x2 foot square. For the purpose of this competition, stepping anywhere onto a "red square" is considered deadly.
When specifying a path through the field, we use the direction commands U, D, L, and R, defined as follows:
| U | Up | North |
| D | Down | South |
| L | Left | West |
| R | Right | East |
We also use an initial command S to designate where to start the path along the front line of the field, along with the additional width of any "safety buffer" you wish to draw around the main path. This safety buffer is also known as the "green zone."
As we draw the main path in blue, we also draw an area in green around that main path. The idea is that the "person at risk," named Seriah in the mission video, should walk through the field exactly on the blue path, which is 2 feet wide. If she steps on any mines in the blue path, she dies. That is what we want to avoid at all costs. If this happens, your score will be 0. Any mines directly on the blue path are shown in orange on the grid display.
The green zone is an additional "safety buffer" which ideally should not contain any mines. If Seriah steps off the blue path onto a neighboring green square, she should be fine. This gives her more latitude in case of a misstep or a slightly bad reading on her guidance system. If she strays into the green zone, her guidance system should warn her and direct her back to the blue path quickly.
If the green zone does contain mines, that will reduce your score proportionally in the number of mines. Mines in the green zone are called "missed mines," shown in yellow on the grid display. We don't reduce your score all the way to 0, because Seriah could still step onto mostly any green square without dying. Mostly.
If the green zone is of width 0, you won't see any green squares at all, just the blue line of the main path. Keep in mind that you are rewarded for making the green zone wider — but also penalized for any mines which lie within the green zone. It's a trade-off.
A path through the field might start like this:
S,27,2 U,9 L,1 U,5 R,4 D,3That S command says that we start at column 27 (x=27) as we enter the field. It also says that when drawing the path, we wish to include an extra 2 squares on either side of the path as the green zone.
From that starting point we then go up 9 squares, then left 1 square, then up 5, right 4, and down 3. The main path is drawn in blue, and the safety buffer around the main path is drawn in green.
You can see the effect of tracing that partial path here.
As another example, here is a path that starts along the left edge, drawing a blue line straight up the field all the way to the finish line, with no green zone at all:
S,0,0 U,150Here's a path that goes along the right edge instead:
S,39,0 U,150Here's a path that goes straight up the center of the field with a green zone of width 2 on either side of the main path:
S,20,2 U,150
When you enter the simulator using the link above, all the parameters of the scenario are shown as read-only values. To edit the scenario, click the Edit button. Then you will see the various parameters as editable fields. These fields include:
| Number of mines | The total number of mines you wish to place on the field, from 0 to 6000. |
| Seed for random mine pattern | The seed for the random number generator that places the mines randomly
across the field. You will note that the placement is typically not uniformly
distributed across the entire field.
The seed can be any floating point number, negative, zero, or positive. |
| Display scale (pixels per foot) | This allows you to change the size of the grid drawn to represent the field. It has no effect on the score, but merely allows you to scale the grid to fit the screen however you like. It is specified as the number of pixels per foot of physical distance. |
| A: Minutes to complete scan | Here you may specify how many minutes you took to complete the scan of the field and identify a safe path. |
| N: Ounces over 1 lb weight limit | Here you may specify by how many ounces the weight of any of your drones exceeds the 1 pound weight limit. This is typically 0, but you can change the number to see its (drastic) effect on your score. |
With any of those parameters, if you enter a blank or invalid value, it will be restored to some handy default value.
You will also see a text area labeled "Path:". Here you can enter a path through the field, starting with the S command, followed by any combination of U, D, L, and R commands. The simulator checks your commands for validity, including:
Ensuring that your main blue path does not step out of bounds on any side of the field.
Ensuring that you do not draw a circular path of any kind where you revisit a square. If you think your scanning algorithm might generate a circular path, you should prune that out on your end because all it does is reduce your score by adding unnecessary length to the path.
When you have changed all the parameters to your liking, you may see the result by clicking either the Preview or Done button. Preview will keep you in Edit mode, and Done will revert to the read-only display (which is better for printing).
To the right of the buttons at the top you will also see a link called "Link". That serves as a perma-link to the scenario you have designed, so you may bookmark or share the link.
You will also see a link called "Help". Clicking that takes you back to this screen, in a new tab so you don't lose your work.
Score = 150000 * W / ( (1+B) * L * (1 + 7*A + 100*N) )
Those parameters are described under "Results:" on the screen.
| A | Minutes to complete scan |
| B | Number of missed mines. This is the number of mines that lie within in your specified green zone, if any. |
| L | Length of path in feet. That is 2*S, where S is the sum of all the numbers on the U, D, L, and R commands in your path. |
| W | Width of path in feet. That is 2*(1 + 2*G), where G is the specified width
of the green zone measured in squares on your initial S command.
The (1 + 2*G) term is the total width of the path measured in squares. It takes that form because the main blue path counts as one square, and there are G green squares on both sides of the main path. |
| N | Ounces over 1 lb weight limit |
This is the simplest and most reliable way to send us the information, since we cannot be certain about internet or even 5G access out in the field.
The format of the path.txt file should be plain text which conforms to the description above (see "Specifying a path" and "Example path format"). It is the same format that you use in the "Path:" text box in the Scenario Simulator.
| Final | Practice |
|---|---|
| India | 1 2 |
| China | |
| Poland | |
| Norway | 1 |
— Updated Thu 2026-08-13. Powered by Fexl