The competition days
The exact dates of the competition days in Cluj-Napoca are TBD (to be decided). They will take place in the middle of May 2027 and will be announced by the organisers. Until then, the schedule below is given in competition days (Day 1 to Day 5), which are consecutive calendar days.
Teams arrival
Teams should arrive in Cluj-Napoca one day before Day 1.
Opening briefing
When: Day 1 (exact date TBD, mid-May 2027).
All team members should come to the Engineering Center Cluj on this day, where working offices and all amenities will be available for the best experience. The event will be opened with a meeting where the schedule and other relevant details will be presented to the participating teams. At this moment, the order of the teams entering the track on the test and semi-final days will be randomly generated and communicated.
Testing
When: Day 1 to Day 3 (exact dates TBD, mid-May 2027).
Each team will have 3x 20-minute slots per day on the track to test their algorithms, spread out throughout the day. When not testing on the track, the team can work in the office. The offices will be open from 7:30 to 21:30 Romanian local time (EEST, UTC+3).
Networking activity
When: Day 1 (exact date TBD, mid-May 2027).
Participants will engage in a series of activities designed to help them get to know each other and explore the city, fostering a strong sense of camaraderie.
Preparation for the semi-finals groups and finals
Due 1 day before each event
Teams are required to send a presentation of their solution in “.ppt” format to the organisers through a specific dedicated channel. The presentation should emphasise the team’s vehicle concept (both hardware and software) and highlight the project’s strengths.
Teams must be prepared with two running scripts: one for the technical run and another one for the Arena Fight, as described below.
Teams must be present on the competition track at the time communicated by the organisers.
Semi-finals
When: Day 4 (exact date TBD, mid-May 2027).
The qualified teams (up to 20) will be divided into two groups of at most 10 teams each. If the number of qualified teams is odd, one group will have one team more than the other. Out of each group, 4 teams will be selected to enter the finals. The first group will compete in the morning, while the second one will compete in the evening. The jury committee is different for each group.
The semi-finals follow roughly the same run logic as the competition finals, with the breakdown as follows:
Jury presentation (10 minutes)
- A team at a time enters the track and does the following (repeated once for each team in the group):
Presentation of the project by using a PPT (5 minutes)
Technical run (10 minutes)
Discussion & logistic time (5 minutes)
The teams not advancing past this stage must return the provided model vehicle by the end of the day, while the others (up to 8 teams) will compete in the finals the following day. The number of finalists might be lower than 8 if some of the top eight ranked teams do not present an appropriate working prototype.
The teams that proceed beyond this point must claim their arena battle sheet (issued on a first come, first served basis), consisting of:
Start position.
Path to follow.
Stop position.
Finals
When: Day 5 (exact date TBD, mid-May 2027).
The logic of the competition’s finals breakdown is as follows:
Jury presentation (10 minutes)
- A team at a time enters the track and does the following (repeated once for each finalist team, up to 8 times):
Presentation of the project by using a PPT (5 minutes)
Technical run (10 minutes)
Discussion & logistic time (5 minutes)
Preparation for the Arena fight (20 minutes)
Arena fight (5 minutes)
Presentation in front of the Jury
As the first activity on stage, each team will present and defend their car concept to the jury by pitching their presentation (5 minutes).
Technical Run
Similar to Pac-Man, teams must “collect” (meaning passing through) virtual dots on the map. While collecting the dots, the car must respect all the traffic rules presented under “The Track” section. Failure to do so leads to applied penalties. The dots position is shown in the “Scoring and Prizes” section.
The team’s vehicle will start from a designated point (either the START position or the random position selected by the jury if the case).
If the start position is chosen, there will be a traffic light with a red light. The team must put the car in its place and start the code. Once the code is running, the Jury will signal the start of the run by pressing their start button and changing the traffic light colour from red to green. The vehicle must autonomously recognise the run start, and follow the desired path, made of the desired collected dots.
If the team opts for a “random starting point”, it must state which will be the first checkpoint that we must consider as valid. Whatever checkpoint is touched in the meantime will not be considered.
The track can be tackled in any order, but teams must inform the organisers of the selected path, while staying within the limit of 10 minutes per run.
One attempt can be cancelled by the team representative within 60 seconds from the start of the challenge and reset the penalties, but not the time.
The car must send data regarding its run to the Traffic Communication server, described under “The Track” section.
Arena fight
The round consists of all the participating teams placing their cars on the track at the same time from their own starting points. When the jury gives the signal to start, the teams start their code at the same time and the cars have to follow their own path.
All driving rules must be met, the same as in the technical run.
- The following is to be considered as additional rules for this fight:
Only 2 members of each team are allowed on the track: 1 to stay near the vehicle, and 1 to monitor it from the distance
The “monitor” members must all stay in a designated space.
The “near-vehicle” members can follow the car around.
The localization system (GPS) will not be available for this round. Cloud-based processing is allowed, under the same conditions as in the technical challenge.
If one team cannot start the car for 1 minute, it will be eliminated from the round.
If one team is stuck in a spot and a car reaches it from behind with a continuous line road, the cars will castle (swap spaces).
The time limit for this challenge is 5 minutes.
Rules for the runs
These rules apply to all runs in the semi-finals and finals (technical run and Arena fight).
Apart from the vehicle itself, the only software a team may run during a run is:
A dashboard application (an example is provided as part of the start code), running on the team’s main computer.
The team’s cloud-based processing services and the device providing their internet access, under the conditions described in the Cloud-based processing section of Additional aspects.
The use of any other controller, device or application is prohibited. The dashboard serves as a monitoring application where the participating team, the organising team, jury members or other participants can check the status of the vehicle in real time. Each team can adapt their Dashboard to their own needs or create one from scratch but must show roughly the same characteristics.
The team’s code for the technical run and the Arena fight must be started from the dashboard itself. After the code is started, no person may send commands to the vehicle, either through the dashboard or through the cloud.
Party
When: Day 5, after the finals (exact date TBD, mid-May 2027).
A networking event will take place to celebrate the hard work and the accomplishments of the participating teams. All present members are invited to the event (team members, mentors, organisers, jury members, etc.).