U.S. Open Soccer ... for Robots

www.livescience.com...

ATLANTA (AP) -- It looked like a scene from a sci-fi flick.

Hugging the sideline, the robot dog waddled down the field and hit a ball with its nose. The ball bounced off the goal post.

It was one of the University of Texas' last chances to get back in the game, which it eventually lost 2-0 to the reigning European champs from Dortmund University in Germany.

Robot dog soccer is one of five games that teams of scholars competed in during the 2005 RoboCup U.S. Open, held Monday at the Georgia Institute of Technology. The aim of the three-day competition, which ends Tuesday, is to develop software for better robots with the long-term goal of fielding a robot soccer team good enough to play a human team by 2050.

"We want to play the best humans versus the best robots,'' said Alan Wagner, a doctorate student in computer science and artificial intelligence at Georgia Tech.

Four of the competition's events are soccer-based. The fifth is a search-and-rescue event in which teams remotely control robots to find victims in a collapsed building in a simulated disaster scenario. The robots whirred through the obstacle course as the sound of crying babies filled the room, and robotic appendages creepily waved back and forth amid the fake rubble.

holy crap!!!

the future is here???

look at this:

"with the long-term goal of fielding a robot soccer team good enough to play a human team by 2050"

this is amazing...

... and robotic appendages creepily waved back and forth amid the fake rubble.

LOL
Gotta give em points for attention to detail!
Now where's my Milla Jovovich fembot?!

We still have another 45 years until that, and I have no doubt that we will have the technology needed in less time than that. But who knows, the next 10 years could be really lazy ... and coming from America. That can only mean more obese people.

i actually competed alongside these guys a few years back. i was in the botball tournament, they were the robo-soccer. stories upon request.

Originally posted by forsakenwayfarer
i actually competed alongside these guys a few years back. i was in the botball tournament, they were the robo-soccer. stories upon request.

Request

Originally posted by American Mad Man

Originally posted by forsakenwayfarer
i actually competed alongside these guys a few years back. i was in the botball tournament, they were the robo-soccer. stories upon request.

Request

Second Request I would love to hear some robo-stories

well, in '99 i was a member of the school's "Bot-Ball" team. basically we took lego minstorms robotics kits, coupled with a custom built one-off "smart-board" and made robots to knock over ping-pong balls, and drag a pvc "base" over to our side of the "field". i personally built both of our machines, as in physically made them. another teammate, name was nate, programmed them. the rest of the "team" bs-ed and had fun with the spare parts while we worked every day after school. but i digress. we won the regional tournament here in pittsburgh, which entitled us to big trophies and flashy certificates and what-not, and a free trip to seattle to compete in the nationals. long story made unbearably short - we failed miserably at the nationals. damn asian kids had some kickass machines.

but while we werent competeing, we had free-run of the whole seattle convention center. the whole place was all robots and such. LOTS of really cool stuff around. home-made robotic hovercrafts, auto-tracking cameras, playing with remote control robotic arms and what-not, you name it.

the robo-soccer teams were next room down, which was pretty fun to watch at times, but its really not as great as they make it out to be. granted AIBO the dog had just come out then, so it was the baby-stage of the whole thing. i can imagine things have really sped up since then. germans won that year too. im going to see if i can dig up any links to the bot-ball stuff, or maybe even our old team webpage on google cache or something. that would rock.

www.botball.org...

schiller classical academy - that was us.

i dont really think anything exists anymore, as in our team website or pictures of the robots. although i do have a few cameras sitting around at home i neevr developed from the trip to seattle.