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

let's hope it doesn't get Battlebot'd

[beanerspace]

After recalling some of the complaints expressed in last month's article BYO BattleBot, let's hope this event isn't usurped, commercialized and consequently ruined by Comedy Central.

Though I have to admint, it might be interesting to put a few BattleBots in the stands to give the event the look-and-feel of a soccer riot.

Re:let's hope it doesn't get Battlebot'd

[flumps]

Ho hum. Trolls eh? I suppose I'll stoop this time...

I think you're totally missing the point. Some of these robots are autonomous, and they can communicate and CO-OPERATE together.

In english, this means that they can figure out, without help from people, exactly what they are and what they are supposed to do and how they are supposed to do it. On top of that, they communicate their goals to other robots on the field; leaving jobs to others that they can't do themselves.

Have you ever done the maths to try to figure out how to keep a robot upright, let alone have it hover in a stable manner? Come back when you can translate a gyroscopic reading into mathematical equations to adjust flight axis via electronic motors and gears. Do you know how hard it is mathematically to work out where your legs are supposed to go in order to move forward, or how hard it is to figure out a game strategy based on what all your team mates are doing when they are all working independantly from you? Don't even talk to me about sensors or video optical processing! None of this is trivial by todays technological standards. It is bloody hard, intesive and time consuming mathematics which eats up processor time and leaves alot of robots trundling along at the pace of a snail.

As for the AI, when you can write a program that even comes close to a bot in quake with a single goal, come back and we'll have this discussion again.

Its a shame we have people like you. I like robot wars et al, but really, this technology isnt playing around with robots; it has REAL and IMPORTANT implications for todays society. Imagine a world where, instead of firefighters putting their lives at risk, we had autonomous teams of robots that new how to put out fires and could co-operate to complete the job - or how about a fleet of autonomous helicopters that could communicate and co-operate with each other to do innumerable tasks? Still want your mindless robot wars crap? Thought not.

Do not mock this technology - it's more important and more difficult to achieve than you think, and has more applications than you could ever dream of.

Re:Other Sports

[Captain Bonzo]

Wouldnt it be interesting to see some other sports too? Perhaps a decatholon?

In the UK we have had a thing called the 'Robot Games', which was a whole load of 'robot' (mostly remote controlled devices, but a few genuinely computer controlled) events including swimming, running, rope climbing, high and long jumps, mouse mazes, and so on. Some of it was a bit naff but it was great fun to watch.

IJCAI

[SuperJ]

RoboCup is only one part of IJCAI. Another interesting event taking place at IJCAI is the AAAI Mobile Robot Competition for urban search and rescue (USAR) robots. They have to navigate three courses developed at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). The courses have proved extremely difficult for autonomous robots to navigate.

RoboCup 2001 in the News

[Observer2001]

Here are some pointers to media reporting on RoboCup 2001 (a few items discuss related events):

"Robo-cup" (audio, requires player) by Lee Gutkind, National Public Radio, Weekend All Things Considered, 28 July 2001

"RoboCup 2001 Marks SGI's Second Year of RoboCup Federation Sponsorship" (press release), PR Newswire, 1 August 2001

"Robot Competitors Meet on a Soccer Field of Dreams" (free registration required) by Jeffrey Selingo, New York Times, 2 August 2001

"RoboCup: Where Bots Kick Butt" by Jason Spingarn-Koff, Lycos News, 2 August 2001

"Rush is on for 'HAL'-like computer to perfect A.I." by Winda Benedetti, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 3 August 2001

"Robot world cup kicks off", BBC, 3 August 2001

"RoboCup 2001 boots up" by Helen Pearson, Nature Science Update, 3 August 2001

"Blutgrätschen ohne Blut und Beine", stern.de, 3 August 2001

"Roboter aus 23 Ländern tragen Fußballweltmeisterschaft aus", Net-Business Online, 3 August 2001

"RoboCup 2001, il calcio visto dai robot", Punto Informatico, 3 August 2001

"Building a better goalie (buzz, whir)" by Gregory Roberts, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 4 August 2001

"Man and machine take the field" by David Olsen, Seattle Times, 4 August 2001

"Robots Storm the Soccer Field" by Maria Godoy, TechTV/Tech Live, 6 August 2001

Information about live Webcast of Botball finals (an event distinct from Robocup) on 7-8 August

Galleries good enough?

[piehole]

Don't know about video feeds, but the UW team has a page linking a few galleries and such.

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.

Comercialization has destroyed events like these

[hillct]

I remember a time (I feel so old...) when these types of events were held at MIT and CalTech but that was about it; when they were entered by teams of grad students who were all engrosed in the technolohical advancement of the machines.

Now there are TV shows like 'Robot Wars' on Comedy Central, and some similar program on the Learning Channel, which make a mockery of these sorts of events, allowing, entry of remote controlled devices rather than robots, and commented on by outragously dressed characcatures of human beings that you'd evpect to see on 'WWF Smackdown!'.

It's good to see that some of these competitions have remained pure durring this time of rampent commercialization.

--CTH

RoboCop????

[D. Mann]

I was really excited when I saw the title of the article, because I had mis-read it as "RoboCop 2001 Underway." Imagine my disappointment when I saw it was actually "RoboCup."

I am part man, part machine.

Excuse me, I must go. Somewhere a crime is happening.

Re:Comercialization has destroyed events like thes

[drc500free]

Yes - as part of the intellectual elite, I feel that we shoult keep competitions of this nature to the top 1% of the academic world, and not share with anyone who we deem to be culturally and intellectually inferior to us. After all, if someone spent a year building a BattleBot in his basement with his son, it's absolutely useless if he doesn't have the knowledge to put A.I. in it. The purpose of events like this is to share the ideas and knowledge. True, these shows glam it up with crazy announcers, but that's just like coating some bitter tasting medicine.

The average American wouldn't want to watch this stuff if it was billed as academic, but if they are tricked into actually enjoying it, the field gets more attention.

More info

[boaworm]

For those of you who hasn't read the whole story I can tell this is a very international competition. I'm a M.Sc student in Sweden, and at my university here we've had a RoboCup competition for a few years as well. It is a very good way to learn how to write autonome agents (football players), and gives a good insight in how AI "works".

For those of you interrested in trying this at home (yes you can :-) the software is available for download. You can run the "server" on both Unix and Windows. Its just to write a few players and get rockin!
For those who just wants to see how it all works, there are also old teams to download. Go fetch!

See it if you can!

[LenE]

The goal of this competition is to eventually develop robots and AI that would be capable of competing with a human soccer team. It's a bit scaled down and unrealistic for now, but the machines are getting better every year.

Our team here at Cornell has one the last two international competitions for the small (not AIBO) class robots, in fact, they haven't lost a game yet (although I'm not sure how they're doing right now). Thier team consists of five omnidirectional player robots and one unidirectional (like foozball) goalie robot, all less than one foot in diameter.

The playing field that they use is about one and a half times larger than a ping-pong table, and their class uses a fluorescent orange golf ball for a soccer ball. The players aren't allowed to touch the players on the other team, and none of the robots are permitted to grab the ball (it must remain un-restrained).

A camera is mounted midfield, to give both teams the same video feed. Our entire team is controlled remotely by two computers. One is dedicated to processing the video feed while the other computer does the AI and remote controll of the robots. Unfortunately, they use NT for both because the drivers for their video capture card don't exist yet under Linux.

-- Len

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:Wow. This could save some $$$s in the UK.

[boaworm]

That's exactly what they are trying to do. Check out their website, they have set year 2050 as a "goal" to create a team that can compete with humans.

http://www.robocup.org/

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