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Robocup 2002 World Robot Soccer Championships

Posted by michael on from the slide-tackle dept.

dipfan writes "While the rest of the world is watching the soccer world championships in Korea and Japan this summer, at the same time the Robocup 2002 competition for soccer-playing robots is to take place there - the sixth time the tournament has been held, with 35 countries competing and this time including a "humanoid league" competition. The purpose is to foster research in robotics, with the aim of building a team of robots that can play and win against the best human teams by 2050. One of the pre-tournament favourites this year is Iran, who did well in 2000 but not in 2001. The Swedish team includes a star player named Priscilla, described as "looking like a sister of the Terminator". One of the Swedish designers comments: 'you don't want to give too much freedom to the robots as they will go crazy.' Much like flesh-and-blood highly-paid sports stars really."

6 of 126 comments (clear)

  1. robocup all the way... by durfal · · Score: 4, Interesting

    While i was talking to this phillips guy, who worked on this project in his spare time, some weeks ago he gave a demonstration (showing some video) this was my first contact with this sport, but it looked very cool...although there not one of the favourites (yet) i think its nice to c what kinda work is being done.
    And above what parts of this research can be used for other parts of lets say the medical industry etc.

    Keep up the good work guys

  2. Disqualified by thatguywhoiam · · Score: 5, Funny

    In related news today, the Brazilian contender for this year's Robot Soccer Cup was disqualified after testing positive for overclocking.

    --
    If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
    1. Re:Disqualified by Quixote · · Score: 5, Funny

      I'm waiting for the RoboHolligans contest.
      I think the British RoboHooligans team will beat the crap out of the other robots, stomp on their guts, set the opposing teams' handlers on fire and run away (and be promptly banned from the next competition).

  3. Ah bright future indeed... by gklinger · · Score: 4, Funny

    I dream of a day where we have robots to play soccer for us thus freeing up humans for more valuable endeavours like building pyramids out of Coke cans.

  4. Priscilla, queen of nightmarish robot designs. by Remus+Shepherd · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Here are some pictures of Priscilla. That robot is scary looking. I wouldn't want to meet it (her?) on a soccer field or anywhere else.

    Robots should be cute. Otherwise they remind us of the whole taking-over-the-world scenario.

    --
    Genocide Man -- Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass murder can be hilarious.
  5. Favorites and team info by SnowZero · · Score: 5, Informative

    (Note: I'm sitting in a RoboCup lab right now, so IMNSHO:)

    I don't think the favorite is going to be Iran this year, but more likely the Phillips professional team, which won the German Open this year. That said, I wish people would realize there are 4 leagues, not just the middle size league, with different robots and different favorites in each. In the Sony Legged league, UNSW has dominated, though we came in second :) There are a lot of strong teams in the league though so we'll have to see...

    In the small size, I'd say the favorites are last year's winner LuckyStar II from Singapore, and Big Red from Cornell University. FU-Fighters is also a pretty strong team. Our team (CMU) hopes to do a lot better this year in the small size league. We won in '97 and '98, but haven't done too well since then.

    I don't know to much about the simulation league so I won't bother to comment. Finally, a personal plug: See a video from the vision system of a Sony legged robot here. It'll give you more respect for how hard a problem this is :) It sure did that for me, even though I've been programming them for several years.