Rules for the Japan Innovation Challenge 2025 have been announced!
For those not familiar with “JIC” it is a search and rescue competition held each year in Kamishihoro, Hokkaido, Japan and you can read about it here on my blog post from 2022 and also my team’s results in 2024 here.
The keys points for the 2025 event are:
- Competition is held on Sat Oct 18th ~ Sun Oct 19th (2 days instead of 3 days previously)
- Applications to compete can be submitted between Jun 1st ~ June 30th (application form is on this page)
- The “remote area” (which is where the operators control the drones from) is at a hotel in Tokyo which is over 900km from the search area
- Prize money is still 5 million yen for stage 1 (search), 3 million for stage 2 (delivery) and 20 million for stage 3 (retrieval)
Participating teams are normally from Japan but there have been some international teams in the past. Previously those teams have always had a Japanese speaker but perhaps through the wonders of AI translation that’s less necessary now. I should mention that there’s a point advantage for teams using made-in-japan copters.
Participating in events like this is challenging but also really fun and a great learning experience. I’m very happy to provide advice to potential participants especially those intending to use ArduPilot. Again, please see my blog post from last year to see what we found worked.
Lastly, if any company wants to donate a large walking robot that we could use for stage 3 please contact me 