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I guess the subject says it all. These are just fancy RC cars. I'd be about a million times more interested in seeing the FIRA RoboWorld Cup or RoboCup televised.

This configuration is what I have in mind for a modern small scale robot.(Small scale because it doesn't have large memory storage on board ) Unfortunately this kind of robot is totally useless without a huge database , server and wireless connection. Robot with this hardware configuration IS a robot!!! I go crazy when I see people wasting time with something like 2 servo motors , small cpu like 8051 with 2k of memory and few sensors that help em not to bump into a first obstacle. Please use your imagination and time for something better.There is still lot's of stupid coffee, washing machines out there to make em smarter.I just don't understand why most of the people want to create such a stupid robot first thing when they learn how to program MCU's.Anyway I hope database and software will be open for others to hook up with it in the future so this robot hungry hobbyists can create something useful. Check http://www.fira.net/. Those robots are connected to central computer with wireless connection and play soccer.

In my experience, this is correct. I actually competed at the FIRA World Cup in Vienna in 2003.

It started as a simple, week-long assignment in a graduate robotics course, to have a half-popcan sized robot play soccer with a tennis ball. It ended up with the school partly sponsoring me to go to the competition.

Of the five entrants in my category, two were from Germany, one from Thailand, and one from Brazil. The two German competitors (based on the movements of the robots) had extremely similar, if not identical code. But then, of the two, one was a PhD, and the other was his student, writing a thesis on the AI.

I ended up in 4'th place of 5. I had spent a total of about a week and a half on the code, using nearly the same AI that I had developed for my class, with some modifications. The other teams had been competing for several years in this category, and had a more mature battle strategy, and more experience in competing with others. Also, the other teams had a certain advantage, since they were using a newer version of the khepera robot with proximity sensors that worked about twice as far.

In my case, the German, Thailand, and Brazilian team all put much more effort into the programming - but mostly because of differing backgrounds. For me it was a small assignment, for them it was a thesis, or a full semester's effort.

Strangely enough, I was the only person competing from the USA, even though there were a dozen or so categories, and about 20 other countries represented.

http://www.k-team.com/robots/khepera/base.html for more information on the robots.

http://www.fira.net/ for information on the competition.

At the SPS 04 meeting we heard about a planned launch in a couple of years of something very similar - a suborbital rocket with 20 minutes or so in space at zero gravity, which will deploy a large triangular mesh intended to resemble a possible structure for a solar power satellite. Then two or three teams of robots will be competing to maneuver about this mesh under vacuum/zero-g conditions, and see how far/fast they can go, and what they can do. One of the teams involved spoke - they seem to have previously had something to do with playing Robotic Soccer.

See this...

The 9th World Cup is coming

And then we talk...

This competition is similar, although in my opinion has more engineering merit. I spent a year developing a team for the 2002 Korea competition but unfortunately we were beset with a poor budget (NZ$5000 - things got tight) and outrageous shipping delays (6 months for motors) and never completed the team.

It was interesting because not only did you have to develop the AI to allow the robots to 'play the game', but you also had to develop a computer colour vision system to 'read' the state of play, as well as a suitable control system for the robots themselves. The use of H bridges and avoiding burning out the motors or circuitry when suddenly reversing direction brought in some interesting research from the university's mechanical engineering department. Wireless comms also came into it, with a one-way FM link. A great project bringing many different areas into one 'arena'.

FIRA has several different classes of competition (we were working towards Mirosot) including a 'simulation only' class.

Of course, now I'm just feeding you.