CIRC 2025 Questions and Answers

Questions aked of our organizers and our answers are posted here.

General Rules and Logistics

  1. What are the requirements for team members for CIRC?
    • Competition teams are made up of secondary or post-secondary students, but we are open to discussing participation options for students of other ages
  2. What is the process to book rooms from the CIRC room block?
    • In order to book these rooms, please call the hotel directly, and let them know the group name you are booking under, “CIRC”.
  3. What constitutes a “tethered connection?”
    • There will be a base station tower that you can attach your equipment to, and you can run a cable from that tower to the operations tent. There may be no wired connection from your operators or the tower to the rover.
  4. Can we swap parts between tasks?
    • Reconfiguring your rover to have different components like the end effector is allowed. We have specific intervention rules in place (https://circ.cstag.ca/2025/rules/interventions/) that would penalize this type of activity during a task. There are no issues with doing this between tasks and it is expected that most rovers will have slightly different configurations per task because things like science modules and robotic arms may not always be required.

Safety Rules

  1. Do self-resetting fuses satisfy the requirements for circuit protection?
    • Any fuse that self-resets won’t meet our definitions of current protection, so a fuse or manually-resettable breaker would still be required in addition.
  2. Would all the rules under 3.# apply to an alkaline battery?
    • BMS is not required for an alkaline battery. It should still have a fuse like any other circuit.
  3. Is it acceptable to use a BMS designed for Li-ion or LiFePO4 with our 6S LiPo battery?
    • LiPo batteries are mostly just a marketing name for pouch-format Lithium Ion batteries, there is no difference in chemistry, so BMSs are cross-compatible. LiFePO4is a different chemistry with it’s own requirements and will not be cross-compatible.
  4. Can we develop and use a custom Battery Management System?
    • We strongly recommend against designing your own BMS. If you purchase one, the evidence required to prove its compliance (see requirement 7.8) is as simple as a datasheet. If you design a custom one, you will be expected to provide schematics, layouts, bill of materials, and supporting analysis demonstrating the safety of your BMS, and our standards are high.
  5. Is it possible to recharge the battery between tasks at a base station?
  6. Are there any limits on battery capacity, power, or voltage?
    • We don’t have any strict requirements about size or voltage. Higher than usual voltages or capacities may cause design challenges, and voltages above 48V will likely mean we need additional evidence (under requirement 7) to prove you’ve safely isolated your circuits.
  7. Is it permissible for the battery system circuit protection element to be part of a power distribution PCB or must it be its own separate device?
    • The purpose of battery circuit protection under requirement 3 is to protect the battery, and the wires you connect to it. Placing your circuit protection on a distribution board likely means there’s a significant length of wire that could cause an unprotected fault, and would likely not meet our requirements.

Boneyard Salvage

  1. Will ozone or hydrogen be released or will there be some other indicator?
    • There may be visible signs of damage, offgassing, or other features of interest on the objects, but this is not guaranteed and would not confirm the current presence of hydrogen or ozone. You are required to be able to confidently state whether or not the described gases are present at the time using your rover’s instruments for the report.
  2. Will gas sensors be provided at the event?
    • No, only the Geiger counter will be provided
  3. Are gas levels to me measured along the whole route or only at specific sites?
    • Hydrogen and ozone levels should be observed at all points while in the boneyard
  4. What is the expected concentration of the gas to be detected?
    • Gas levels will be kept below the threshold to become a respiratory hazard for contestants
  5. Is it necessary to provide the concentration of hydrogen or ozone to describe a leak?
    • The presence of the gas could suffice to identify a leak
  6. Could UV radiation affect the results of the measurement?
    • There should be no such risk
  7. What are the dimensions of the Geiger counter to be provided?
    • We will provide specifications for the Geiger counter, including dimensions and interface requirements, as soon as possible.
  8. Can we use our own Geiger counter to complete the task?
    • No. You will be required to use the provided Geiger counter. There will be no radiactive sources at the task, the provided Geiger counter will simulate real data.
  9. Are we submitting our report as a form, or as a report as in previous years?
    • The report will be a CIRC-made form. We intend to provide the form in advance of the competition for teams to review. As this is the first year we have provided a form, we hope contestants will provide feedback on their experience with the new format.

M&M

  1. Will the DNA analysis involve biological analysis and genetic sequencing, or simply comparing the provided code to a reference?
    • The task will be to match the number from the Aruco marker to a provided reference code. There will not be a real DNA sample/ sequence.