Thyssenkrupp automotive hackathon
disclaimer •
windows •
linux •
docker •
tips-n-tricks
What is "Engineering in high gear!"?
It is Thyssenkrupp's automotive hackathon, the contest is about teams developing a bot which is capable to drive autonomously in a simulated environment provided by the TORCS simulator.
A detailed technical documentation for the TORCS Simulator can be found here
This guide will show you what steps (simulation + server + client) you have to do to be able to execute TORCS Simulations in Windows , Linux and in a containerized environment in wsl or in linux.
Before you start please create your own repository from this template repository to your registered team user. During the creation please make it a private repository and add the tkpgamification user.
If you find any issue in the repository please make for it a GitHub Issue.
For the development we suggest you start with the windows setup, because there is visual feedback for the developed algorithm, but also execute the dockerized solution as well.
During the qualification for the 24 hour challenge the evaluation of the released clients by the teams will be validated with the dockerized/docker-compose setup described below
TORCS Server windows installer: https://sourceforge.net/projects/torcs/files/torcs-win32-bin/1.3.4/
TORCS Server patch for windows: https://sourceforge.net/projects/cig/files/SCR%20Championship/Server%20Windows/2.0/patch.zip/download
Install the game to a path without any special characters (not even spaces are allowed), copy the contents of the patch zip into the game's folder and overwrite the files.
The algorithm is located in the CDriver.c file. The main function is the CDrive which gets a structCarState and replies with a structCarControl.
You are not allowed to modify any other file.
You can find detailed information about the sensors and effectors on page 13-14 of the above mentioned official description. There is also the Cinit function which describes 19 angles where the distance sensors shall be located. You can modify this as well to fit your needs.
You have the possibility to specify the type of car you are using in the simulation as follows:
"repo-name"/client/CAR
Types of cars:
155-DTM, acura-nsx-sz, baja-bug, buggy, car1-ow1, car1-stock1, car1-trb1, car1-trb3, car2-trb1, car3-trb1, car4-trb1, car5-trb1, car6-trb1,car7-trb1, car8-trb1, kc-2000gt, kc-5300gt, kc-a110, kc-alfatz2, kc-bigh, kc-cobra, kc-coda, kc-conrero, kc-corvette-ttop, kc-daytona, kc-db4z,kc-dbs, kc-dino, kc-ghibli, kc-giulietta, kc-grifo, kc-gt40, kc-gto, kc-p4, p406, pw-206wrc, pw-306wrc, pw-corollawrc, pw-evoviwrc, pw-focuswrc, pw-imprezawrc
The default type is buggy.
The easiest way to build the client is to use Visual Studio 2019 Community edition but you can use any preferred IDE to build the software.
For Visual Studio: create a new empty project, then add all the source files and the WS2_32.lib to the project with the Project->Add Existing Item option. After this you can build and run your client.
If you get "This function or variable may be unsafe" errors while building, right click on your project, select Properties and add "_CRT_SECURE_NO_WARNINGS" to Configuration Properties->C/C++->Preprocessor->Preprocessor Definitions.
Start the game and navigate to Race->Quick Race->Configure Race. Here, if you choose a racetrack and click accept you should see "scr_server 1" as Selected player. When you finnish configuring the race, you can select "New Race". Now the race will start and it will wait for the client's connection. You have to start your compiled client now(client.exe in your source folder) and it will connect to the server.
You can also run the server in headless mode, you can find detailed information about it in the technical documentation.
The following description is also valid for wsl based setup on windows host.
All the example commands for the server build have to be executed from the server folder level
The source of the server can be found here: TORCS SERVER
A docker image of the TORCS Server can be pulled from https://hub.docker.com/r/tkpgamification
docker pullIf you want your self to build the server runtime image the easiest way is to execute the following in wsl or in linux:
make full-buildThis target will creates the base image, the build image and the runtime image for the server.
To use with the available docker-compose file change the image tag from tkpgamification/torcs_server:1.3.7 to torcs_server:1.3.7.
All the example commands for the client build have to be executed from the client folder level To build the client execute the following make target:
make linuxTo create the docker runtime image for the docker compose based simulation with the containerized torcs server, execute the following make target in wsl or in linux:
make dockerAfter all the required runtime images are made, to start a simulation execute the following in wsl or in linux:
make simulation RUNTIME_TORCS_CLIENT_IMAGE=<image_name> CAR_NAME=<car_name> ROAD_NAME=<road_name>RUNTIME_TORCS_CLIENT_IMAGE is a environment variable to define the docker-compose which client image has to be used during the simulation. CAR_NAME any or that you have set in the CAR file in the client folder ROAD_NAME the name of the selected map you want to execute the game, if you create To find out what is the name of the client image execute the following in wsl or in linux:
make show-runtime-clientTo be able to notify us about new version of the client you have to setup a webhook in github as follow:
Use the webhook url published in discord for the payload url, set content type to application/json and mark let me select individual events
and select the Releases event and set the hook to Active .
After the webhook is set now you can release your new version of the repo.
The webhook link will be provided after all registered teams haw added tkpgamification user, on the official channels.
Please before every release make sure that your solution works locally with the provided dockerized environment setup.
https://git-scm.com/download/win
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install
The official description of docker installation: https://docs.docker.com/engine/install/ ,
and for docker-compose: https://docs.docker.com/compose/install/