Setting up your PC

The first step in getting started on the competition is to get access to a computer with the right system requirements, and set it up with the right operating system, software and environment to run the competition packages.

System requirements

You will need a computer that has all (or at least most) of these specifications:

• A dedicated GPU,
  • Nvidia cards tend to work well in Ubuntu
• A CPU that is at least an Intel i5, or equivalent,
• At least 4GB of free disk space,
• At least 8GB of RAM

Operating System (OS)

We will be using Ubuntu Noble Numbat (24.04) operating system (OS) which is a flavor of Linux. We know that some participants may have limited or no experience using Ubuntu, so here is a guide on different ways of setting up an operational Ubuntu Noble Numbat instance for this competition.

If you have a Windows PC (or any other operating system different from Ubuntu Noble Numbat 24.04), here are two (2) options to explore:

• Option 1 (Recommended): Dual-Boot: Install Ubuntu Noble Numbat (24.04) in a dual-boot alongside your Windows OS.

• Option 2: Using Virtual Machine: Run Ubuntu Noble Numbat (24.04) in a Virtual Machine (VM) on your native Windows OS.

Dual-Boot (Recommended)Using Virtual Machine

• This video walkthroughs the process of dual-booting Ubuntu Noble Numbat (24.04) alongside your Windows OS. Following this guide also achieves the same dual-boot setup.

• Installing VirtualBox on your PC to run Ubuntu is outlined in this video. You can also follow this guide to install VirtualBox and run Ubuntu.

Installing ROS

Once you have a fresh Ubuntu Noble Numbat (24.04) installation, the next step is to install ROS. We are using the ROS2 Jazzy distribution for this competition. You can install ROS2 Jazzy by following this guide, install the Desktop version, ros-jazzy-desktop, and follow the rest of the setup guide.

If you prefer video instructions, you can watch this YouTube video (there is an accompanying blog post in the video description).