Before the rules, the why. AsteroidBee is a story wrapped around real spaceflight engineering. Every mechanic in this manual — sunlight and shadow, energy budgets, free-flying robots, cameras for inspection — mirrors a real challenge that engineers solve to keep spacecraft alive and useful. This section gives you the context that makes the game make sense.

2.1 / Humans In Space & The ISS

People have lived and worked in space continuously for over two decades. The International Space Station (ISS) is the largest crewed structure ever built in orbit, circling Earth at roughly 400 km and completing a full lap about every 90 minutes. That means a crew sees a sunrise and a sunset roughly 16 times every day. Astronauts run thousands of science experiments there — on materials, plants, the human body, and robotics — that are difficult or impossible to perform on the ground.

Zero Robotics connects students to that work. The autonomous control software you write in this competition descends from real research code that has run on hardware aboard the ISS. You are not playing at engineering — you are doing a simplified version of it.

2.2 / Sunlight, Shadow & Power

Because a spacecraft laps the planet so quickly, it spends roughly half of every orbit in direct sunlight and the other half in Earth's shadow, a period called eclipse. In sunlight, solar panels generate power and recharge the batteries. In eclipse, there is no sun, so the spacecraft must run entirely on stored battery charge until it comes back around into the light.

This single fact drives a huge amount of real spacecraft design, and it is exactly the Light Zone / Dark Zone mechanic in AsteroidBee. Your satellite recharges in the Light Zone and runs down its reserves in the Dark Zone. Managing that cycle — gathering energy while you can, spending it wisely while you can't — is the same problem a real mission planner faces.

2.3 / The Astrobee Robot

Astrobee is a family of free-flying robots that operate inside the ISS. There are three of them — Bumble, Honey, and Queen — and each is a cube roughly 32 cm on a side. They took over from the earlier SPHERES robots, which served as the ISS robotic test platform for more than a decade. Astrobee helps astronauts by taking inventory, recording experiments with its cameras, and carrying small payloads, freeing the crew for work that needs a human.

Astrobee maneuvers using electric, fan-driven propulsion rather than burning fuel, and it carries cameras it uses to navigate and to inspect its surroundings. In AsteroidBee, your satellite is an Astrobee: it moves by firing thrusters (drawn from a limited fuel budget), it watches the field with sensors, and it carries a camera that — just like a real inspection robot — only produces a usable image when its target is properly lit.

2.4 / Cameras As Instruments

Imaging is one of the most valuable things a spacecraft can do: weather satellites photograph storms, survey craft map asteroids, and inspection robots photograph other vehicles to check for damage. A camera is only as good as its light, though — point it at something in shadow and you get nothing. That constraint is the heart of AsteroidBee's scoring: a photograph of your opponent is only worth points when they are in the Light Zone, your camera is on, and you are facing them. The story calls it espionage; the engineering is real orbital imaging.

Matches of AsteroidBee are played between two Astrobee satellites controlled by programs written by two separate teams. Each team competes to have the most points when the round ends. Points are earned by photographing the opposing satellite and uploading those pictures, or by collecting score-generating items (the asteroids) scattered around the playing field.

Dynamic Light and Dark zones have various impacts on the satellites, representing how a real satellite in orbit is half-illuminated by the sun and half in Earth's shadow (eclipse). Pictures cost energy to take and can only be taken when the target is in the Light Zone. Zones shift mid-round.

Each satellite has a finite amount of energy. Energy regenerates in the Light Zone or by picking up Energy Packs. Mirror items, when deployed, prevent the user from taking pictures, but reflect any pictures the opponent takes back at them, making them worthless.

3.1 / Game Layout

The 2026 competition is conducted in simulation. Play happens in the Interaction Zone; satellites that leave it are out of bounds. Position is measured from the center of the satellite (radius 0.11 m). Satellites at the bounds are stopped from moving further out.

Each team writes software to command an Astrobee satellite. An Astrobee moves using twelve thrusters, though for the middle school game, Z-axis motion is disabled. Like any real spacecraft, the Astrobee has a power source (LiPo batteries). Resources are limited and must be used wisely.

4.5 / Initial Deployment

Write code assuming your player is the Blue Astrobee, this adjustment is handled automatically if you're assigned Red. The satellite radius is 0.11 m; position relative to game features is determined by the center.

4.6 / Noise

Although both competitors run the same challenge with identical satellites, the two may be affected by random perturbations differently, producing small or even large variations in score. This is intended. It reflects uncertainties in real satellite dynamics and sensing. The best solutions will be robust to these variations and a wide range of object parameters.

5.1 / Energy

Energy is the most prohibitive resource. Both players start with 5.0 energy (also the maximum). In the Light Zone, energy regenerates at +0.5/sec. Maneuvering costs 0.3 energy per 1 second of fuel used.

5.2 / Light & Dark Zones

The positive Y sector starts in the Dark Zone; the negative Y starts in the Light Zone. Zones swap at T=60s and T=150s. Out-of-bounds light matches the adjacent in-bounds area, satellites stranded in the dark with no energy stay stuck until the swap. Call getLightSwitchTime() to know when.

5.3 / Items

Nine items are scattered across the field (IDs 0–8). Each can be used only once and does not regenerate. To collect: the center of your satellite must be within 0.05 m of the item and moving slower than 0.01 m/s.

5.4 / Picture Taking

The way to score the most points is by photographing the other satellite. All seven conditions below must be met for a successful picture:

5.5 / Scoring Summary

Tiebreaker: whichever satellite is closer to the origin (0, 0) at game end wins.

6.1 / Independent Competition

The program starts with two phases of regional simulation. Practice Code is submitted at the end of Week 3, results are not official and exist to guide teams in improving code during Week 4. Submission deadline is 5pm local time on the Thursday/Friday of Week 3.

To qualify for finals, teams must submit both Practice Code and Round 1 Code.

To enter a program, use the Submit tool under Simulate on the IDE page. You may change your submission as many times as you like before the deadline; only the final submission counts. Late submissions are not accepted unless ZR staff determines emergency circumstances made timely submission impossible.

6.2 / Final Competition

After Round 1 code is submitted, teams are assigned an ALLIANCE. Alliances must work together to test, compare, and combine their code to submit to the finals. The final code is submitted by the alliance. Finals take place aboard the International Space Station with live video transmission, all teams are invited to watch.

Note: real spacecraft use battery packs and CO? tanks that can exhaust mid-match. The competition will have "Loss of Signal" (LOS) periods when the live feed is unavailable. ZR will attempt to make sure every team sees a live match of their player, but completing the competition takes priority. Results from simulated matches may be used if necessary.

All coding and testing happens in the Zero Robotics web IDE. You write your autonomous pilot, simulate it against sample opponents until it behaves the way you want, and then submit it to the tournament. This section covers how to test effectively and how to get your code into the competition.

7.1 / Local Simulation & Debugging

Before submitting, run your code in the IDE's simulator. The simulation models the Astrobee's motion and all the constraints in this manual within a virtual environment, so you can watch your strategy play out and find problems early.

7.2 / Submitting Your Code

When your code is ready, submit it from the IDE using the Submit tool under Simulate. You may change your submission as many times as you like before a deadline — only your final submission counts. Late submissions are not accepted unless ZR staff determine that emergency circumstances made timely submission impossible.

To qualify for finals, your team must submit both the Practice Round code and the Round 1 code. See Section 06 — Tournament Schedule for dates.

Everything below lives on the Zero Robotics website under the 2026 Middle School Program tournament tabs. Dates are subject to change — check the website and your Weekly Emails regularly for updates and announcements.

9.1 / Key Deliverables

These are the major milestones for the season. All code deadlines are 5:00pm EST. To advance to finals, a team must submit both Practice Round and Round 1 code.

9.2 / Surveys & Evaluations

All students and educators are required to complete pre- and post-program surveys. Your feedback is critical to assessing and improving the program. Have students complete the pre-survey by the end of Day 1, and the post-survey on the last day of the program (or on ZR Finals day). All survey links live on the Surveys & Evaluations tab.

9.3 / Using ChatGPT & Generative AI

Generative AI tools like ChatGPT can help you understand concepts and get unstuck. They also carry a risk: leaning on them too hard can keep you from truly understanding the code you submit, which leads to mistakes you can't diagnose.

9.4 / Getting Help: Forums & Office Hours

The Forums on the Zero Robotics website are the primary place to ask questions, share ideas, report bugs, and get answers from the ZR team and other teams. The ZR team also holds office hours — great for getting feedback on your code or clarification on the rules. Schedules and any changes are posted on the website and in the Weekly Emails.

9.5 / Tutorials & API Reference

New to the IDE or to programming? Start with the step-by-step materials on the Training Resources and Educator Materials tabs, which walk through creating a project, writing your first moves, and submitting code. A complete list of the functions you can call — with what each one does — is in Section 10 — User API Reference of this manual, and a printable API guide is linked at the top of this page.

Astrobee control functions (except DEBUG) are accessed as members of the api object, e.g. api.setPositionTarget(mypos). Game-specific functions are accessed via the game object, e.g. game.takePic().

Manual subject to change. New entries are added to the top of this log as revisions are published.