1
Rulebook
Description and objective, team composition, format and progression, run structure and timings, permitted and prohibited actions, penalties, appeals, and definitions.
Events / Half-Life
The Doon School · 08–10 December 2026
Half-Life
The arena, the line track and the bin positions never change. Only the colours of the 8 objects change, one layout per round drawn by lot, and a red object, once lifted, has 45 seconds to reach the red bin.
AGV: Autonomous Ground Vehicle Navigation
Sort by colour. Red is radioactive: you have 45 seconds.
Red is hazardous: once lifted it must reach the red bin within 45 seconds. Only the colours change between rounds.
Rules
How it runs
- The robot scans the 8 objects in the pickup area, identifies the colour of each one, and sorts each into the bin of the same colour. It carries each object along the line track to its bin, then returns to the parking zone and parks.
- Hazardous (red) objects are treated as radioactive. Once lifted, a red object must be placed in the red bin within 45 seconds. A red object that is not in the red bin when its window closes scores zero and costs 3 points. Blue and green objects are ordinary objects.
- Each round has one colour layout for the 8 positions, drawn by lot by the Event Head, the same for every team and not shown before the run. A layout may include all 8 of one colour or none of a colour. The 2 m × 2 m arena, every position, the line track and the bins never change.
- Objects must be carried and placed, never pushed across the floor: a pushed object, or one the robot removes from a bin, scores zero. An object is placed when it lies fully within a bin with no part protruding above the rim, as recorded by the judge panel. A bin marshal empties each bin as soon as a placement is recorded, so a bin can take more than one object, and an emptied object keeps its points.
- The robot must be completely autonomous, with all processing on board and wired connections only: no Wi-Fi, Bluetooth or other radio of any kind. It is started and stopped by a single START/STOP button. Once the run has started, no team member may touch the robot, an object or a bin; human intervention ends the run.
- Each robot has one full inspection, with its design and build score, at a scheduled robot inspection session (7 December 17:15–18:45, 8 December 08:00–08:30 or 10:00–10:30). Before every run there is a short pre-run check beside the arena of at most 3 minutes.
- Each team gets a 60-second calibration window, then a run of up to 300 seconds. No retries are permitted.
- Two qualification rounds; a team’s qualification score is the higher of its two runs. The 4 highest-scoring teams go through to a single final run, and the highest total in that run wins. Teams outside the final are placed 5th and below by qualification score.
Object classes
- Red (hazardous): Treated as radioactive: into the red bin within 45 seconds of lifting
- Blue (ordinary): Into the blue bin
- Green (ordinary): Into the green bin
Event details
- Discipline
- Robotics
- Participants
- 2 per school
- Control
- Fully autonomous
- Event head
- Samrat Gupta
- Deputies
- Vivaan Kumbhat
- Sensors permitted
- Any number and type of camera, on an arm of at most 2 degrees of freedom; IR, ultrasonic, time-of-flight, accelerometers, encoders and other sensors
- Barred
- LIDAR · any wireless link · pneumatics and hydraulics · free liquids
Judging
- Each run scored out of 100: 15 for design and build quality, given once at the inspection session and counted in every run, and 85 for run performance
- Object sorting: up to 6 per object, 3 for the correct bin and up to 3 for speed (handling time of 20, 30 or 45 seconds)
- Completion time: 25 points at 120 seconds or less, falling to 0 at 300 seconds
- Parking accuracy: 6 if every part of the robot is inside the parking zone, 3 if only part is
- Wall contacts: 6 points, less 1 per contact. Touching a bin or an object is not a wall contact
- Ties: higher object sorting score, then shorter completion time, then fewer wall contacts, then higher design and build quality score
Arena
The arena in 3D
Drawn to scale from the Arena Specification. Drag to rotate, switch to plan view, draw a new colour layout, or show a 250 mm robot to check clearances. Click into the model to zoom.
Judging rubric
How the marks fall
| Criterion | Weight | Marks |
|---|---|---|
| Design and build quality | 15 | |
| Object sorting | 48 | |
| Completion time | 25 | |
| Parking accuracy | 6 | |
| Wall contacts | 6 | |
| Total | 100 |
Weights are those in the event’s published documents. Scoring levels, tie-break order and who scores what are set out in full in the document pack below.
Documents
The Half-Life pack
5 of 6 documents available
These are the documents your team will receive for Half-Life. Between them they set out everything a team needs in order to prepare.
Version 2, 5 November 2026. Text highlighted in yellow is new or changed since the version of 9 October, and each document ends with a table listing every change. The Robot Specification is unchanged.
2
Robot Specification
Dimensions at start and expanded, mass, power source and voltage limits, permitted actuators and sensors, control method, communication protocol, prohibited materials.
3
Arena Specification
A dimensioned scale drawing in plan view, all fixed dimensions with tolerances, surface material and finish, wall heights, printable colour references, and the exact range of any variation between rounds.
A school must be able to build a practice replica from this document alone.
4
Judging Rubric
Criteria with point values summing to a stated total, scoring levels, tie-break order, who scores what, and when scores are published.
5
Inspection & Safety
Pre-competition inspection checklist and schedule, consequences of failed inspection, safety requirements during runs, spectator boundaries, and the emergency stop procedure.
6
Support Material
A worked example, a starter guide to core techniques, the concepts a team should learn, common mistakes, and an FAQ.
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3D arena viewer
The arena drawn to scale in millimetres. Rotate it, switch to plan view, draw a new colour layout and show a 250 mm robot to check clearances.
+
3D arena model
The same arena as an OBJ model with its MTL colour file, for CAD or 3D software, in millimetres with Y up.
Documents marked “Available soon” will appear here as soon as they are released.
Flow
How Half-Life works, step by step
The event from start to finish, as the rules above set it out. The detailed documents for Half-Life will appear here once they are released to registered schools.
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Inspection, then a 60-second calibration window
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Press START/STOP
The robot leaves standby; the 300-second run clock starts.
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Identify the next object by colour
Red is hazardous; blue and green are ordinary.
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Carry it along the line track to the bin of its colour
A red object must reach the red bin within 45 seconds of lifting.
-
Objects left in the pickup area?
If no, continue to the next step.
If yes: Back to step 3
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Return to the parking zone and park
Completion time stops when the robot stops moving in the parking zone.
-
Top 4 after two qualification rounds?
If yes, continue to the next step.
If no: Event ends for the team
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Final: a single run
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Highest total in the final wins
Who runs it
The people behind Half-Life
Samrat Gupta
Event Head
Samrat is a Grade 11 student at The Doon School pursuing the ISC curriculum, with a keen interest in Robotics and Artificial Intelligence, and hopes to build a career where technology meets business and finance. He serves as the House Robotics Captain, training juniors and organising builds for his house. He has represented the School at the STEM Innovation Challenge in Mumbai and at the World Robotics Olympiad. He follows politics closely and plays whatever sport comes his way. He is honoured to serve as the Event Head of Half-Life at the IPSC IT Fest 2026.
Deputy Event Head
Vivaan Kumbhat
Next
Build-Different
Driver-controlled robots place four plants into the pots of matching colour and assemble a five-piece monument, with a surprise third stage for the semi-finals and final.