BEST Robotics Polycraft 3D Printing Challenge

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  Figure 1: Polycraft Island needs your help to settle and transform Refugees into inspired Villagers.

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  Figure 2: Powerful secrets begin to reveal themselves if you can solve the Puzzle Hunt mysteries.

Polycraft World Refugees arriving at Polycraft Island have little more than the clothes on their backs, but impoverishment was not their plight even a few months ago in their motherlands and fatherlands. Those arriving hail from all parts of Polycraft World society, from bankers and lawyers to scientists and school teachers. At first they will be happy simply for a safe place to live, but they soon strive to establish a new life and new home to raise their families and build a vibrant community. Dirt homes and a toilet are better than nothing, but it will take advances in your housing technology and the infrastructure of your Village Plot for the refugees to see your island as a place for a thriving community for the 21st century... instead of a pit stop on the way to other teams' islands.

Are you a 3D Printing expert?
Do you love demolition?
Do you love recycling?
Can you engineer a massive settlement in a tight space to house those in need?
Can you unlock the secrets of Polycraft Island?

Polycraft World and your Villagers need you!

The Challenge

Your team of Polycraft Island Engineers has a tall order ahead. Your mission...should you choose to accept it...is to build the best and most advanced Village possible for fleeing Polycraft World Refugees to live and thrive. The more dwellings you build on your Village Plot and the happier the refugees become that settle there, the higher your score! Not that only the score matters to humanitarian engineers such as you and your team.

Houses for arriving refugees must be built on the Village Plot, and start at Technology Level One (dirt houses with hay bale beds). As more refugees get comfortable and happy living at a specific technology level, they will become ready and willing to help you advance your burgeoning society's manufacturing capabilities to a higher technology level enabling and unlocking better housing materials, enhanced (and more comfortable Polycraft Beds), and better community buildings. If you can reach all the way to Technology Level Eight (Technology Level Four in Round 1), your refugees will be thriving in a modern community with 4-story Carbon Fiber Homes, silk beds, nylon beds, art galleries, and more!

It all starts when you build your first dirt house with a hay bale bed.

Remember: Your team of Engineers has a total of 50 hours for Round 1 (October 2-31: Technology Levels 1-4) and 50 additional hours for Round 2 (November 1-21: Technology Levels 5-8) to engineer the best Village possible!

Getting Started

This Section contains useful tips for new and veteran Minecraft players alike.

Scoring

This Section describes in complex detail how your team will be awarded points for settling and entertaining refugees.

Village Plot

This 48 block x 48 block portion is the only part of the island that can contain valid housing and amenities. Several important concepts are related to your Village

Housing

The Structure Validator runs every few seconds while you are on your Village Plot. It provides feedback on when you have built structures that conform to rules of the Current Age at the current Technology Level. the

Community Buildings

A thriving community has more than bedrooms and houses. The first thing your Refugees will want access to, naturally, is a Toilet. And as the Village becomes more and more advanced they will be delighted to have access to other specialty buildings that help them meet their neighbors, utilize their professional skills, and take care of their families. How close your Refugees are to Community Buildings has a big impact on their Happiness.

Progressing Through the Ages!

The 3D Printing Challenge will propel your growing Village through 4 Ages, each with a corresponding Technology Level.

Population Capacity

As you grow, your 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 Round 1 and 4 Ages in Round 2. Note: you can still have Valid Structures from previous Ages that lead to productive Villagers in the current Age. They just don't pack quite as densely.

Happiness

Your Happiness modifier (of each Villager) will help you score big points each Age but abysmal Happiness won't stop you from moving on to a new age. Do you bull rush dissatisfied Villagers to Age 4 and try to appease a large, dense populace or take your time during each age and max out Villager happiness 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 Population Capacity and Happiness of your Village are influenced by your current Technology Level. Each technology level unlocks a new type of Housing Material, a new level of Polycraft Bed to go in those homes, and new Community Buildings for your Polycraft World Refugees to use. As you progress to more and more advanced technologies, stronger materials, 3D Printers and 3D Scanners can support building larger and larger structures, faster and faster. Building a large Village can be sped up significantly with a 3D Printer, but demolition of a large Village 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...

Signing Up

• Register as a Student with BEST Robotics
• Download and Install the Challenge Launcher here. Running Mac/Linux? Grab the MultiMC Package instead! Learn more about MultiMC here.
• Sign in on the Launcher with your Minecraft: Java Edition Mojang account
• Hit PCW Update
• Hit Play Polycraft World

More Detailed Set-Up Instructions and Installation FAQs

Troubleshooting and Gameplay FAQs

Troubleshooting

• Problems with your Team's Private Property? Have your entire team log out from the server. Wait for 60 seconds, then try logging in again.
• Problems with starting Round 2? Make sure to click 'PCW Update' on the launcher before joining the server for Round 2.

Gameplay FAQs

How much time do I have left? and What's my team's score?
You can monitor your score and time remaining here. Numbers are updated every day around 4pm Central Time.

Must the 50 hours be played consecutively?
Your team's fifty hours will be based on the timestamp of actions taken in-game. Our scoring analytics will log all of your team's actions on our servers that accrue points (see scoring) and the first fifty hours of actions across all team members will be counted towards your round score.

How do we 'submit' when we are done?
No submissions are necessary! The scoring analytics is logging your actions so we will know when you've successfully completed a task. You can also use '/village' to see your statistics and score.

Are there any 'due dates' for when these tasks are due?
The rounds ends on Sunday, October 31st at 11:59PM Central Time (Round 1) and Sunday, November 21st at 11:59PM Central Time (Round 2). Any actions taken towards Round 1 or Round 2 objectives after these times will not be counted towards your round score. Please see the scoring page for details on what actions count towards your Team's Score.

Have more questions? Send them our way at support@polycraftworld.com

Patches and Bug Fixes

Nothing to see here folks!

Technology Levels, Houses, and Beds

Technology Levels:

The capabilities of your Village are all based on your current Technology Level. Each technology level unlocks a new type of Housing Material that your 3D Printer can use, a new level of Bed to go in those homes, and a new Communal Building for your Refugees to use. As you progress to more and more advanced technologies, the stronger materials and better 3D Printers can support larger and larger structures.

Tech Level	Required Construction Material	Required Bed Type
1	Dirt	Hay Bale Bed
2	Wood or Wood Composite	Acrylic Wool Bed
3	Stone or Stone Composite (not cobblestone)	Olefin Wool Bed
4	Polymethyl Methacrylate (PMMA; a.k.a. Plexiglass) or PMMA Composite	Polyester Wool Bed (Beginner)
5	Acrylonitrile-Butadiene-Styrene (ABS; a.k.a. LEGO Blocks) or ABS Composite	Polyester Wool Bed (Intermediate)
6	Bronze or Bronze Composite	Nylon Wool Bed (Beginner)
7	Stainless Steel or Stainless Steel Composite	Nylon Wool Bed (Intermediate)
8	Carbon Fiber or Carbon Fiber Composite	Nylon Silk Bed (Advanced)

Houses and Beds

Houses need a few basic things to be livable: 1) They shouldn't be open to the outside world. That's just not safe. 2) They need a Door to enter. 3) They need a Bed of the matching Technology Level. 4) They need to be structurally sound.

Once your house meets the basic requirements above, the Technology Level of your house will be determined by if it is constructed with the correct materials and if it has the right type of bed. As you advance through the ages, the construction materials become stronger and able to support larger structures, which in turn allows you to place more beds and increase the density of your population. Another benefit of advanced materials is that stronger materials need to make up less and less of a structure's walls, allowing you to be more creative with adding windows and using other aesthetically pleasing materials in your buildings.

For the exact requirements needed for a house to qualify for a given Technology Level, see the table below:

Tech Level	Required Construction Material	Maximum Structure Footprint (including walls)	Allowable Height of Doors	% of Walls that Must be Construction Material
1	Dirt	25 sq. meters (e.g., 5x5 blocks)	2 blocks above the Village Plot Blocks (~1 story)	>= 85% of the walls (not including corners/floor/ceiling)
2	Wood	40 sq. meters (e.g., 5x8 blocks)	2 blocks above the Village Plot Blocks (~1 story)	>= 75% of the walls (not including corners/floor/ceiling)
3	Stone	55 sq. meters (e.g., 5x11 blocks)	8 blocks above the Village Plot Blocks (~2 stories)	>= 65% of the walls (not including corners/floor/ceiling)
4	Plexiglass	70 sq. meters (e.g., 5x14 blocks)	8 blocks above the Village Plot Blocks (~2 stories)	>= 55% of the walls (not including corners/floor/ceiling)
5	LEGO Blocks	85 sq. meters (e.g., 5x17 blocks)	16 blocks above the Village Plot Blocks (~3 stories)	>= 50% of the walls (not including corners/floor/ceiling)
6	Bronze	100 sq. meters (e.g., 5x20 blocks)	16 blocks above the Village Plot Blocks (~3 stories)	>= 45% of the walls (not including corners/floor/ceiling)
7	Stainless Steel	115 sq. meters (e.g., 5x23 blocks)	26 blocks above the Village Plot Blocks (~4 stories)	>= 40% of the walls (not including corners/floor/ceiling)
8	Carbon Fiber	130 sq. meters (e.g., 5x26 blocks)	26 blocks above the Village Plot Blocks (~4 stories)	>= 35% of the walls (not including corners/floor/ceiling)

Beds: Every Bed in a House counts as 1 Population for your Village. Similar to the construction material upgrades, every Technology Level upgrades the quality of the Beds your Villagers will sleep in. To count towards your score, any Bed must match the Technology Level of the House it is in.

Multi-story Houses: As your construction material advances (starting at Technology Level 3), you can start to 3D Print multi-story structures and build your Village vertically! While this gives you increased opportunities to skyrocket your Population, the Refugees must still be able to safely enter each home. For any Door to valid that is more than 2 blocks above the Village Blocks, it must have a ladder nearby that extends safely to the ground.

Images of valid Multi-story Houses:

Private Team Properties

Teams will have a private property where only their team can modify the environment and other teams can not interfere with their progress.

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.
Check your Village Scores	'/village'	This command will pop-up information about how far along you are in the 3D Printing Challenge.
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.
Teleport to a Mining Base Camp	'~tp 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.