COVID Challenge Round 2

Figure 1: All teams receive an identical starting teamspace for Round 2

Description

Round 2 of the BEST Robotics Polycraft COVID Challenge will take place from November 8th - December 4th, 2020.

Teams of BEST Robotics students will work together to solve puzzles, develop strategies, and meet milestones to accumulate the highest score possible.

Each team's first 50 hours of gameplay will be used to determine their progress and resulting score for this round.

Round 2 shifts the focus towards research, development and production of a vaccine that cures all citizens infected in PolycraftWorld. Teams start the challenge on an abandoned alien space station. Teams have to collaborate to restore power to the station and find clues that its previous inhabitants left behind as they researched for a COVID cure. Teams then use the knowledge they uncovered to begin treating and curing citizens that appear at their Clinic in their teamspace. Finally, using pumps, flow regulators, pipes, and polycraft inventories, players need to mass produce vaccines to complete the challenge.

To maximize points, we recommend having some team members focus on Milestone 3 while others are completing Milestone 2 waves.

Milestones

• Milestone 1: Completion of the Space Station escape room
• Milestone 2: Achieve herd immunity in your teamspace by Vaccinating COVID Citizens until no more show up with signs of infection.
• Milestone 3: Mass-produce 350 Million vaccines using the flow-network, off-shore oil platform, and clean rooms pre-built in your teamspace as a starting point, growing from there.

Changes from Round 1

Based on student feedback, a variety of improvements were made to the user experience of Round 2. Here are some highlights:

Space Station Escape Room

• All teams are required to participate in the Space Station Escape Room at the beginning of the challenge. Unlike previous Puzzle Rooms, the time spent in this escape room does NOT count against the team's 50-hour cumulative maximum. However, all teams only have 3 hours (starting from the first second a team member logs in).
• These three hours are non-cumulative. Having 4 players vs. 10 players will still give each team 3 full hours to attempt to solve this challenge. Careful - the larger the team, the harder it will be to communicate & collaborate! This puzzle will be difficult for solo-player teams to complete in three hours.

Teamspace

• All teams will start with an identical team space (no more Ocean spawns)
• This teamspace will contain the base for a COVID Clinic, an ease-of-use mine & mineshaft, a Cleanroom, and a flow network to automate the processing of LDPE and PP necessary to make vaccines.
• The teamspace will also have a scavenger hunt for additional resources to aid you in mass-production is hidden throughout the team space! Perhaps photographing the property around you can help to link to a starting point.

COVID Clinics

• COVID Clinics need to be activated with PPE and Testing kits as before. When patients start arriving, your goal is to treat infected patients with Convalescent Plasma and immunize healthy patients with working vaccines.
• As patients are vaccinated, more and more citizens will arrive already immune to COVID. Do not be alarmed! Immunity is our goal and necessary to achieve herd immunity and complete Milestone 2.

Cleanroom and Flow Network

• Your teamspace comes complete with a nearly cleanroom and mostly functional factory for manufacturing vaccine. In order to fully complete Milestone 3, you will need to add to these constructs to make them more efficient and effective.

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