the protocol

How to enter the board.

Milkbench scores one thing: how many minutes a hand takes to draw a litre. An entry is a number, a video and the code, plus a paper once there is one.

The number

Minutes per litre, wall clock, from the first drop to the litre mark, exactly as the video shows it. Any hand qualifies and so does any rig, provided the litre is drawn by the hand's own motion at the teat and by nothing else.

The video

One continuous, unedited take of a full litre being drawn by the approach and the embodiment you are entering, with the reservoir and the litre mark in frame. The board ranks on the video.

The code

The trajectory and control that produced the run, in a public repository, so the run can be repeated by someone who is not you.

The paper, once there is one

A peer-reviewed publication that reports the number. Optional at submission. An entry without one is listed all the same, and the link is added when it exists.

Ranking

Ascending by minutes per litre, and by nothing else. The board carries no weighting for cost, mass, autonomy or generality, all of which matter and none of which it measures.

Milkbench is a benchmark under construction by Prof. Dr.-Ing. Mark Schutera, DHBW Ravensburg, and Prof. Dr. Jonas Weber, companion to an abstract submitted to the XXVI International Grassland Congress, Leipzig 2027. The protocol is versioned with the board and does not change under a submitted run.