2026 TOMORROW TRIALS · COMPETITION COURSE · ADDENDUM SPEC
A generated 3D model of the competition course: a green-tape corridor 900 mm wide with gentle bends, 90° turns, three kinds of 900→600 mm narrowing and an overhead hurdle, from start box to finish box. Every seed is a different course that satisfies the same spec, so the swarm can be tuned against many layouts before race day. Same generator, same seeds, in the sim and in CAD.
Click an element to look at it. Share a course with ?seed=1337.
Fixed by the brief. The addendum supersedes the obstacle list in the main brief; only these elements are modelled.
| Item | Spec | In the model |
|---|---|---|
| Track marking | Green decorators tape on the floor; drones stay inside or are penalised | 50 mm tape, widths measured tape centre to tape centre |
| Default width | 900 mm | 900 mm |
| Gentle bend | Up to 45°, several, both directions | 15–45° kinks in 5° steps; ≥1 left and ≥1 right, plus 0–3 extra |
| 90° turn | Both directions, several | Sharp 90° corners; ≥1 left and ≥1 right, plus 0–2 extra |
| Narrowing | 900 → 600 mm at 45°; right-hand, left-hand and both-sides variants; straight while narrowed | All three in every course; 300 mm (single side) or 150 mm (both) tapers, 1.2–2.4 m narrowed run |
| Overhead hurdle | Ramp with a green down-arrow guides the drones under a barrier; the inverse ramp guides them back up | Hanging wedge + floor hill, 400 mm each at 45°, 0.8–1.2 m level run between — see below |
| Flight height | 1000 mm ± 200 mm; hard max 1500 mm (kill switch) | Blue flight-path line at 1000 mm, dipping to 600 mm under the hurdle |
| Min clearance | 200 mm per drone through any opening | Hurdle opening 900 mm floor-to-barrier; ≥175 mm around a 250 mm drone at 600 mm |
| Formation | Box: 300–600 mm centre-to-centre per axis. Diamond: 400–600 wide × 600–800 long. Deviations ≤ 2 s | Four 250 mm drones shown at 450 mm box spacing in the start box; a 600 mm corridor forces ≤350 mm lateral spacing |
| Start / finish box | Sized to hold the full swarm formation | 900 × 1200 mm tape rectangles butted onto the corridor ends |
| Drone | ≤ 250 × 250 × 250 mm incl. guards, ≤ 1.5 kg, 4S LiPo, prop guards, kill switch, fully autonomous | Our build: 248 mm envelope, ~400 g — see Drone CAD |
01 · BOTH DIRECTIONS
A kink in the corridor of up to 45° (Figure 2). The tape edges are mitred at the corner, so the outer edge is longer than the inner one. The formation can usually hold its box shape through these; the planner mainly needs curvature-aware speed.
02 · BOTH DIRECTIONS
A sharp right-angle corner. The inner tape corner sits 450 mm from the spine vertex; the outer corner 636 mm. At 450 mm box spacing the outer pair of drones sweeps a much longer path than the inner pair, so formation-hold vs. speed is the trade here.
03 · THREE VARIANTS
Right-hand, left-hand or both-sides tapers at 45°, then a straight run at 600 mm, then the mirror taper back out. The single-side variants shift the corridor centre by 150 mm; the swarm has to squeeze from up to 600 mm lateral spacing down to 350 mm (600 − 250).
04 · ELEVATION
A hanging wedge whose underside slopes down from 1300 to 900 mm carries a white board with a green down arrow; its vertical rear face is the barrier. The drones descend to 600 mm, fly a short level run, then climb over a floor hill (250 → 650 mm, green up arrow) back to 1000 mm.
The brief's elevation figure draws the flight arrows passing under the first ramp and over the second, with the barrier edge on the 600 mm line. A 250 mm drone centred at 600 mm reaches 725 mm, so the model lifts the barrier's lower edge to 900 mm (175 mm clear) and caps the hill at 650 mm (225 mm below a drone at 1000 mm). These heights are parameters in both the generator and the OpenSCAD library and will be replaced by the venue's numbers.
01 · SEQUENCE
Every course contains a left and a right gentle bend, a left and a right 90° turn, all three narrowings and one hurdle, plus 0–3 extra bends and 0–2 extra turns. The order is shuffled and elements are joined by 1.0–2.5 m straights.
02 · LAYOUT
Each corner's direction is chosen with a one-element look-ahead: keep the next section ≥600 mm clear of everything already laid and grow the footprint least, with a 25 % chance of a random feasible pick. Both directions of each type are guaranteed.
03 · VALIDATE
The tape footprint must fit the room in either orientation and no two non-adjacent sections may come within 600 mm. Failed layouts are redrawn from the same seeded stream, so a seed always gives the same course.
Source: CAD/track/course_gen.js (Node + browser, no dependencies) · build.mjs writes
course.json, an OpenSCAD data file and renders tape.stl, hurdles.stl,
course.stl plus previews · track_lib.scad holds the geometry modules. The JSON carries a
100 mm-sampled centreline with width and target height, which is what the racing sim will consume next.
FLOOR + TAPE
The course above needs about – of 50 mm green decorators tape (– × 50 m rolls with 15 % waste). Chalk the spine first, then offset each edge; mitre the corners.
HURDLE
Two 1.5 m posts each side (50 mm timber or 25 mm ali extrusion), a top beam, a 0.9 × 0.57 m sloped board and a 0.9 × 0.6 m barrier board. Hill: two 0.65 m and two 0.25 m legs under a 0.57 m sloped top with a back panel. Two 600 × 400 mm white boards with green arrows.
VENUE
Courses are generated to fit a 15 × 10 m room by default; change the room fields above to match a real hall. The footprint includes 150 mm around the tape for the gantry posts.