The drawing for the first Round Robin took place at the team leader meeting yesterday. Unfortunately only 15 teams participate in the Kid Size league this year and therefore the game plan changed significantly compared to last year: Instead of 8 groups with three teams each we have four groups with four teams each in the first Round Robin this year. As only 15 teams showed up in China, the last spot in one of the groups remains empty. The second Round Robin which follows the Intermediate Round will then have four groups with three teams each.
This year’s drawing was more fortunate for us than last year’s, because we are in group D with one empty spot. However, that does not mean we will be placed at least third in the group automatically: One match will be against the empty goal, which might lead to own goals and therefore to a win of team “_blank_”. Set for the group are our special friends and runner-ups from last year from the University of Hertfordshire – team Bold Hearts. The good news are: As we are starting in the same Round Robin, it means we cannot be defeated by them in the Intermediate Round again! In addition, the RoboPatriots from George Mason University were drawn into our group. This team is one of the most interesting ones, because they are not coding their behaviour beforehand but rather train their robots with Machine Learning during the tournament. Therefore, their game play might change rapidly from game to game and it is therefore always surprising to watch them. A huge advantage is that we only have Darwin teams in our group. The artificial turf is softer than at the GermanOpen and therefore a bit easier for the Darwins, but the small robots still struggle with their stability a lot. Great potential for an exciting Round Robin in any case!
Our first matches will take place tomorrow at 12:30 PM an 3:00 PM local time, which relates to 6:30 AM and and 9:00 AM German time. The first match will be against the RoboPatriots and in the second match we’ll meet the Bold Hearts. The last game against the empty goal will be at the 20th, the exact time is not yet set. The game schedule and results will be published on the new website of the Humanoid League under “Results” as soon as the internet allows it this year.
In about an hour the Robot Inspection starts and the rest of the team is feverishly working on standing up and walking of Hambot and the Darwins and the ball and goal recognition to get ready for the first two group games tomorrow.
