RoboCup 2001 Underway

Dan B writes: "RoboCup 2001, the fifth international competition, is underway. The competition is held from August 2nd through the 10th at the Washington State Convention and Trade Center in Seattle, Washington, USA. International teams compete their autonomous soccer-playing robots in three different leagues including Sony Legged League (remember the cute puppies?). The competition is open to the public, so if you happen to be near Seattle, check it out."

Comments

Soccer matches make Baby Darwin cry.

[jeko]

No, let's hope it exactly gets battle-botted.

Soccer matches do not have the raw Darwinian drive to perfection necessary to provide me with my own personal R2 unit before I die. As someone who makes his living in a non-English speaking country, I WANT my own protocol droid, dammit, and I want it SOON, if not now.

Let's face it. If Team Gizmo goes to compete, and GizmoBot misses a point, they're going to go out drinking later and talk.

However, if Team Gizmo goes to compete, and the StripeBot rips the living fur off of poor little GizmoBot, leaving him to howl and scream as he goes into that long night, Team Gizmo ain't going drinking later. No, they're taking their butts back to the lab to make "the MogwaiBot: Midnight Buffet and Swim."

Enough iterations of that, and pretty soon I'll have my very own protocol droid, courtesy of Riff.

where this is heading

[Anonymous Coward]

According to the New York times article, the intent of this competion is to create a team of robots that can defeat the winners of the world cup for soccer by 2050. It also mentions a bunch of humanitarian uses, such as firefighting and other dangerous work.

But it doesn't mention the most obvious "dangerous work." By which I mean, of course, war. Am I the only person troubled by this?

Not replace. Mix.

[jeko]

No, no, no. You should have paid more attention in your Lit courses.

People watch sports and movies because they "identify" with their heroes. Watch a boxing match. See how many people move like they're the ones fighting? Been to an actual ball game lately? Ever notice how many beer-sodden wretches actually think they're part of the game? You know why you like sex scenes in movies? Because deep down you sort of believe that you're the one getting laid.

Now, if you replace the human players with bots, you really discourage identification. The whole thing devolves into a tractor pull, which isn't nearly as satisfying as watching Knute Rockney win one for the Gipper.

Here's what you want to do. Mix the humans and robots. Give each team a couple of bots. Make some of them ED 209s. Make the others Bishop.

Inevitably, some of the human players will turn into John Henry "A Man Ain't Nothing But a Man" Heroes who fight valiantly and get ripped apart by the machines.

Now, you have identification, crowds on their feet, stadiums shocked into silence, Maximus getting carried off the field by an honor guard.

And there's your box office.

Re:Other Sports

[NeilArrow]

It's a nice idea, but the challenge in Robocup is in making the robots play as a team. Football (or Soccer for you non-UK types) is a fairly simple game that incorporates all the problems of simulating a team sport.

Most other sports don't have the teamplay aspect. Whilst it would fun to watch robots throwing javelins around a hall full of people, it doesn't require the incredible coding and engineering skills that the Robocup contestants have.

However, they do have a Robot Rescue competition. This requires robots to negotiate an arbitrary warehouse rescuing victims of a fire.

Neil