RoboCup bots experiment with our preconceived notions of competition, standing up
By Paul Miller 
posted May 4th 2009 3:41PM
posted May 4th 2009 3:41PM
Bowdoin CMU 3rd Place Match - First Half
Bowdoin CMU 3rd Place Match - Second Half
Texas UPenn 1st Place Match - First Half
Texas UPenn 1st Place Match - Second Half
They are kind of cute when they aren't trying to kill us.
Can't wait to see these things in a couple more years they probably will be able to play at a really nice level instead of walking into one another.
Can anyone tell me how to "activate" comments. I want to participate in the engadget drawings but I'm not sure if my comments are activated?
Sorry for putting this in an inappropriate post but I just figure no one actually reads the posts for the giveaways.
If your comment shows up it's activated.
if you don't have a regular account (using "new readers" tab) you should get an email with a link to activate the comment. if you're using the "returning" tab, you don't have to activate. sometimes you might have to refresh the page to see your comment as sometimes it takes a few seconds to post.
Is the bot capable of laying on the grass grasping it's ankle in hopes of getting a penalty on the other team?
Yes, but I think it's the immediately jumping back up after it doesn't work part that they are still working on.
RoboCup made me think of something COMPLETELY different... I think they should rename it. Or, change the game so it's played with just two of them.
How about "SubBOTeo"
Two Robots, 1 cup...?
Your sick, sick mind!
2 Girls, 1 RoboCup???
ROTFLOL, the first video when the blue robot tries to kick the ball and slowly falls sides ways is side bursting hilarious!!!
GOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!!
Not as good as TechnoGames.
Remember Robot Wars?
How my roommate on the Northern Bites team summed up the first game they played:
"The other team scored a goal while our robots were spinning around in a circle. Then the other team scored an own-goal. We tied."
I've been friends with these guys for a while, and they put their heart and soul into this stuff. I watched them all kill themselves trying to figure out an efficient method of getting the robots to walk. They put an incredible amount of time into all of this, along with all the other RoboCup teams around the world. The code that these guys write is incredibly complex. Representing human balance and motion in terms that a computer can understand is no easy task.
In another year or two, I'm sure the level of play will be much more impressive once the basics like walking and shooting are figured out. Then the Northern Bites, 2007 World RoboCup Champions, will rise again!
That was awesome! I wouldn't mind placing a bet on the blue team. :)
-Blade Genexis
The bots play better than Real Salt Lake!
If you're impatient like me and want to see a goal, go to the last video, 8:46 in.
It's about as exciting as watching real soccer :)
It's good to see that they have already mastered the essentials of soccer - falling down without any apparent reason or colision with an opponent...
The Sony Aibo robocup tournaments are much more interesting, as they're more mature (and with 4 legs there's less falling over).
I'll actually be taking a class next semester involving these robots. I can't wait.
Last year's world championship was the last time that the AIBO's were used. Sony stopped manufacturing them a long time ago, and the maintenance costs were getting to be too much. The league decided to abandon the four-legged division and focus solely on bipedal competition as a result.
It seems to me like forcing the competitors to delve into basic motion control is largely a duplication and waste of effort. It would be much more useful to provide the teams with standardized and working motion routines and let them deal with high level aspects of path planning, field awareness, and strategy which are far more useful in real world applications.
When I first saw the NAO humanoids, I thought they'd make for a cool standard league. But the more video I see of them in action, the more I regret RoboCup's sponsorship of them. Not only are they extremely slow and wonky, but they are actually slowing down the researchers from achieving their goals of a 2050 human / robot match. If the RoboCup people were serious about this, they would have made the VisiON series of robots (from Team Osaka) the new official standard league. Team Osaka has won the humanoid cup consistently for several years; sponsoring them would not only bring every other team up to their standards but also ensure that the companies involved in creating them would be well-funded. As it stands, choosing NAO as the platform smells like charity for the up-start French company Aldebaran Robotics to me.
Sorry our blog went down under the traffic... there's a video of an Aldebaran rep giving a demo of the capabilities of the robot that might be interesting. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QimlfNaqGJM
While the Nao isn't perfect, the updated version of it is leaps and bounds ahead of what we had to work with in China for RoboCup 2008.
Nick (aka camera guy for these videos)
I want to see it at 3x speed with yakety sax.
Here:
http://james.nerdiphythesoul.com/bennyhillifier/?id=9KMzqfL5HH0
Here is some footage of the Humanoid League RoboCup German Open 2009 final:
NimbRo vs. Darmstadt Dribblers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJaOcv81QuQ
Enjoy!
Look, Frieza playing soccer.
we are making progress, LOL