RoboCup@Home — Getting Started

RoboCup@Home is challenging by design. The tests are open-ended, the environments are unpredictable, and no robot is ever fully ready. This guide is not about building the perfect robot — it is about making smart decisions early so your team can learn quickly and compete effectively within your first one or two seasons.

Robot Capabilities

Start with the fundamentals.

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Navigation and speech recognition unlock the most tests — prioritize these before anything else.
Build and test in imperfect conditions from day one. Your lab is not the competition arena.
A robot that works at 80% reliability in a messy environment beats one that only works in controlled conditions.

Software Architecture

Design your software to survive competition day.

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Use a behavior framework so logic is reused across tests rather than duplicated.
Avoid one big startup script. Each component should be independently restartable in under 30 seconds.
Log everything. When something fails in the arena you usually have one minute to diagnose it.

Hardware

Choose hardware you can actually maintain.

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Competitions

Go to a local competition before the world championship.

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Local and regional competitions are lower stakes and a much better first experience than the RoboCup world championship.
You learn more in two days at a real competition than in months of lab testing.
See the competitions page for upcoming events.

Strategy

Pick the right tests for your robot.

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Read the rulebook and identify two or three tests where your robot's existing strengths apply.
Scoring partial points consistently beats attempting hard tests and failing completely.
Focus on depth rather than breadth in your first season.