2023 BEST Robotics - Global Logistics Challenge
Figure 1: See our Getting Started page to Sign-Up and Register your team today.
Figure 2:Teams will have your own private property where only you can modify the environment and other teams cannot interfere with your progress in your quest to win the 2023 Best Robotics Global Logistics Challenge.
Figure 3: Your very own Island Logistics Nexus needs your help to improve the efficiency of Robots into fast-moving, industrious global logistics automatons.
Figure 4: Powerful secrets begin to reveal themselves if you can solve the Scavenger Hunt mysteries.
Delivery Bots arriving at your Island Logistics Nexus have little more than the grease in their joints, but with proper infrastructure, support and training, can become highly productive elements of your multi-national goods distribution business. Those Robots will allow you to distribute goods to populations in need. At first they have no proper infrastructure to support their activities (no score), but they soon will be entering dirt warehouses, wooden warehouses, stone warehouses and warehouses made from many different advanced materials to help move goods off-island. They will also deliver goods to unique Supply Chests which can be built in your Central Receiving district building. Dirt warehouses and a Generator are better than nothing, but it will take advances in your construction technology to rapidly improve the infrastructure of your Distribution Plot for the delivery bots to increase their efficiency.
Are you a 3D Printing expert?
Do you love demolition?
Do you love recycling?
Can you support complex infrastructure development in a tight space to warehouse goods for people in need?
Can you unlock the secrets of the Island Logistics Nexus?
Polycraft World needs your leadership to guide autonomous delivery robots into efficient distribution machines!
See the Current Scores and Time Remaining for all teams:
The Challenge
Your team of operations engineers has a tall order ahead. Your mission...should you choose to accept it...is to build the best and most advanced Distribution Complex possible by recruiting Autonomous Robots to work and convey goods across the areas in need. The more structures you build on your Distribution Plot and the more efficient the Delivery Bots become that operate there, the higher your score! Not that only the score matters to humanitarian engineers such as you and your team as you bring out the BEST in others.
Warehouses for arriving Delivery Bots must be built on the Distribution Plot, and start at Technology Level One (dirt warehouses with charging stations). As more Delivery Bots get efficient at a specific technology level, they will collect goods to help you advance your Distribution Complex capabilities to a higher technology level enabling and unlocking better warehousing materials, enhanced (and more efficient charging stations), and better Utility Buildings. If you can reach all the way to Technology Level Eight (Technology Level Four in Phase 1), your Delivery Bots will be thriving in a modern logistics ecosystem with 4-story Carbon Fiber Warehouses, charging stations, central logistics hubs, and more!
It all starts when you build your first dirt warehouses with a charging station. As you progress through the Challenge, powerful tools and items help increase the speed with which you can terraform the world and mold it to your will. Power Tools are special pieces of equipment that can be discovered by clever explorer|hunters. Building a large Distribution Complex can be sped up significantly with a 3D Scanner and a 3D Printer.
Remember: Your team of Engineers has a total of 6 weeks (March 15-April 30, 2023) for Phase I (Technology Levels 1-4) and for Phase II (Technology Levels 5-8) to engineer the best Distribution Complex possible!
Getting Started
The Getting Started Section contains valuable information about:
- Signing Up
- Challenge Gameplay Mechanics
- Scoring Information
It also includes useful tips for new and veteran Minecraft players alike.
Your Distribution Plot
This 48 block x 48 block portion is the only part of the Island Logistics Nexus that can contain valid Warehousing and utilities. Several important concepts are related to your Distribution Complex.
Warehousing
A Structure Validator program runs every few seconds while you are on your Distribution Plot. It provides feedback on when you have built structures that conform to rules of the Current Age at the current Technology Level. Warehouses follow specific design rules and if built correctly, their charging stations serve to recruit robots and increase Robot Population Capacity.
Utility Buildings
A thriving distribution ecosystem has more than warehouse after warehouse. The first thing your robots will want access to, naturally, is a Generator. And as the Distribution Complex becomes more and more advanced your robots will require access to other specialty buildings that help them increase the efficiency of gathering and distributing goods. How close your Robots are to Utility Buildings has a big impact on their Efficiency.
Scoring
This Section describes in complex detail how your team will be awarded points for recruiting and improving the efficiency of autonomous robots and maximizing your Score Through the Aegis and phase-specific Bonus Points.
Progressing Through the Ages
Round 1 of the Global Logistics Challenge will propel your growing Distribution Complex through 4 Ages, each with a corresponding Technology Level.
- Dirt Age : Need to recruit 16 autonomous robots in Dirt Warehouses and build a Electrical Closet and Central Receiving to progress.
- Wood Age : Need to recruit 32 autonomous robots in Wooden Warehouses and build a Tooling Station to progress.
- Stone Age : Need to recruit 48 autonomous robots in Stone Warehouses and build a Quality Control Room to progress.
- Polexiglas Age : Need to recruit 64 autonomous robots in Polexiglas Warehouses and build a Data Warehouse to progress.
Round 2 of the 3D Printing Challenge will expand your Village through 4 additional Ages, each with a corresponding Technology Level.
- ABS Age : Need to house 80 Villagers in ABS Brick Houses and build a Accounting Office to progress.
- Bronze Age : Need to house 96 Villagers in Bronze Houses and build a Automation Hub to progress.
- Steel Age : Need to house 112 Villagers in Stainless Steel Houses and build a Just-in-time Manufacturing Augmentation Hub to progress.
- Carbon Fiber Age : Need to house 128 Villagers in Carbon Fiber Houses and build a Central Logistics Hu to progress.
We'd love to see how your village progresses. Please share creative, impressive and/or funny screenshots with us on our social media (links in the sidebar)!
Robot Population Capacity
As you grow, your Robot Population Capacity will hit thresholds that let you advance to new Technology Levels and move from your Current Age the the next age. There are 4 Ages in Phase 1 and 4 Ages in Phase 2. Note: you can still have valid structures from previous Ages that lead to productive Robots in the current Age. They just don't pack quite as densely.
Efficiency
Your Efficiency modifier (of each Robot) will help you score big points each Age but abysmal Efficiency won't stop you from moving on to a new age. Do you bull rush dissatisfied Robots to Age 4 and try to appease a large, dense autonomous populace or take your time during each age and max out Robot efficiency along the way? The choice is yours in a tight space, on a tight timeline...and your final score will reflect it.
Technology Level
The Robot Population Capacity and Efficiency of your Distribution Complex are influenced by your current Technology Level. Each technology level unlocks a new type of Warehousing Material, new levels of charging stations to go in those warehouses, and new Utility Buildings for your robots to use. As you progress to more and more advanced technologies, stronger materials, a 3D Printer and 3D Scanner can support building larger and larger structures, faster and faster. Building a large Distribution Complex can be sped up significantly with a 3D Printer, but demolition of a large Distribution Complex can be a cumbersome process. Power Tools are special pieces of equipment that mightily speed up this process, but they can only be acquired by cunning problem solvers...
Useful Commands
| Purpose | Command | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Get help | '/help' | This command will pop-up some guidance and information about other useful commands |
| Get your Coordinates | Press p | Users can press 'p' in game to pop up location and private property information on the top left of their screen. |
| Message your Team | Type t | Typing 't' will open chat. Typing a message in chat and pressing 'Enter' will send messages to all other users on the server. Users can also type useful commands here. |
| Open the Utility Analytics Screen in your Distribution Plot | Press u | Users can press 'u' in game to see additional information about the relative location of different Utility Buildings. |
| Open the Score Through the Ages Analytics Screen in your Village Plot | Press v | Users can press 'v' in game to see additional information about your current Technology Level and about Peak Age Scores. |
| Teleport to your Team Property | '/teamspace' or '~tp pp' | These commands will teleport a user to the team's private property. Users must be in a private property to use this command. |
| Teleport to UTD | '/goto utd' or '~tp utd' | These commands will teleport a user to the center of UTD, Polycraft World's spawn point from another private property. |
| Teleport to a Mining Base Camp | '~tp pp 1000 -1000' | This command can be used to teleport from one private property to another. Base camps for mining specific Biomes are available if you teleport to the Base Camp's coordinates. However, the base camp private property landing zone is small and you must return this area to teleport back. The wilds surrounding base camps are rich in resources, but are not private properties, so you can't teleport unless you in the Base Camp landing zone (16 x 16 blocks, bedrock to sky). |
Patches and Bug Fixes
Team TODOS in game:
Add these blocks and Recipes
Charging stations and add them as the critical objects for Warehousing
Generator
Supercomputer
Remap 'c' on the Distribution Plot to 'u' based on the change from community buildings to utility buildings.
Useful Internal Links
Polycraft World Main Page | 3D Printing Challenge | Refugee Crisis Challenge Home | Global Logistics Challenge | Island Logistics Nexus | Distribution Complex | Distribution Plot | Robots | Warehousing | Utility Buildings | Efficiency | Robot Population Capacity | 3D Printer | 3D Scanner | Phase I Scoring | Phase II Scoring | Score Through the Aegis | Charging Stations | Technology Level (GLC)
Introduction to the 2023 BEST Robotics - Global Logistics Challenge
Register for the Challenge: www.polycraftworld.com
Learn about the Challenge: 2023 BEST Robotics - Global Logistics Challenge
We are working with BEST Robotics leadership to design a tailored, competitive challenge in an open world environment for BEST Robotics teams. For this challenge, teams will face a never-before-seen challenge in Polycraft World: the advent of artificial intelligence has made companies more and more efficient at delivering goods and services. Your organization must come to the rescue at the Island Logistics Nexus where help is desperately needed. Luckily, if you can build a sophisticated infrastructure that includes warehouses and utility buildings, you can recruit robots to distribute the desperately needed goods. Using 3D Printers, Scanners, and recycling demolished materials, teams will build a Distribution Complex with 3D printed warehouses and Utility Buildings and advance their Distribution Complex from dirt huts to Carbon Fiber mega-complexes.
Each team will have a private island where they will 3D Print their way through a series of technology levels (dirt, wood, Polexiglas, etc.) and will accumulate points rewarding their efforts. If you want additional resources that aren't available on your island paradise, head to a Base Camp as a mining/harvesting outpost to grab the needed blocks and items. The competition will be divided into two phases – initially, teams will 3D Print 1 and 2 story buildings made out of dirt, wood, stone, and Polexiglas. In the second phase (i.e., “championship round”), teams will return to their private island and will build skyward with 3 and 4 story buildings made out of bronze, stainless steel, and carbon fiber. The highest scores will be awarded to teams that best solve the crisis by building a the most efficient Distribution Complex.
While Minecraft knowledge will be helpful to teams, pre-existing Polycrafting knowledge will not be needed for teams to compete successfully.
Introduction to the 2021 BEST Robotics Polycraft 3D Printing Challenge
Register for the Challenge: www.polycraftworld.com
Learn about the Challenge: BEST Robotics Polycraft 3D Printing Challenge
We are working with BEST Robotics leadership to design a tailored, competitive challenge in an open world environment for BEST Robotics teams. For this challenge, teams will face a never-before-seen challenge in Polycraft World: a humanitarian crisis has led to Refugees needing a new community to call home, and fast! Using 3D Printers, Scanners, and recycling demolished materials, teams will build a Refugee Village with 3D printed houses and Community Buildings and advance their Village from dirt huts to Carbon Fiber Condos.
Each team will have a private island where they will 3D Print their way through a series of technology levels (dirt, wood, Polexiglas, LEGOs, etc.) and will accumulate points rewarding their efforts. If you want additional resources that aren't available on your island paradise, head to a Base Camp as a mining/harvesting outpost to grab the needed blocks and items. The competition will be divided into two stages – initially, teams will 3D Print 1 and 2 story buildings made out of dirt, wood, stone, and Polexiglas. In the second stage (i.e., “championship round”), teams will return to their private island and will build skyward with 3 and 4 story buildings made out of LEGO blocks, bronze, stainless steel, and carbon fiber. The highest scores will be awarded to teams that best solve the crisis by building a thriving Village for the Refugees.
While Minecraft knowledge will be helpful to teams, pre-existing Polycrafting knowledge will not be needed for teams to compete successfully.