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RoboCup 2007 Opens At Georgia Tech
Craig writes "The 2007 installment of RoboCup has begun; individual events opened to the public today. RoboCup is an international robotics symposium and competition whose goal is to advance the fields of robotics and artificial intelligence to the point that in 2050 a robot soccer team can defeat the human world champions. This year, RoboCup is located on the Georgia Tech campus in Atlanta, GA, marking the first time a university is hosting it and only the second time since it began in 1993 that it is located in the United States."
I'm also a past participant (about 3 years) from a few years ago.
There used to be a lot more innovation than what we see now and I'm not sure if that is because ideas have been perfected or if new rules are preventing teams from straying too far from the norm. I know of quite a few Universities which used to be part of Robocup but quit ~3 years ago because they lacked interest/students/funding (yes, it is very expensive).
In 2050 I'm guessing that RoboCup will be similar to Forumla 1 car racing in that they will both have very strict rules on how you should design your robot/car. Why should the world's best soccer player only have 2 legs and 2 arms? And why should they be limited to the amount of power you can pack into a small space? I guess the question you need to ask of RoboCup is whether it is focussed on a fair balanced competition against a human soccer team, or whether the goal is simply to build the best robot possible (no limits) and expand future research. Universities are only involved in Robocup because it is researching new areas of artificial intelligence and to a lesser degree, robot design and construction. So if too many rules are put in place, the amount of research possible is reduced severely. If new nano-technology materials are produced allowing for better-than-human qualities in robots, is this a bad thing (I'd say no).
Does anyone know where we can find the Team Description Papers (TDPs) for 2007? These are well worth a read as they describe how each team built their robots, as well as what technology they have included.