After our arrival, the setup days were very busy while we prepared our hard- and software, which is why we didn’t have the time to publish another article yet. Today we put our hard work of the last days to the test in the first games of this years world championship.

During the preparation days we spontaneously decided to switch out parts of our modular vision pipeline with a neural network based on the YOLO architecture – with surprising results: We were able to detect balls across the whole field. The goalpost detection was also greatly improved by these changes. We were expecting some improvements by exchanging the module, but still everyone was very surprised by just how good it actually worked.

Another thing we changed: We’re dynamic. We introduced DynUp™ and a reworked version of the dynamic kick that was initially developed by a group of students in one of our bachelor courses. These modules allow our robots to stand up even faster while being more stable and to kick the ball in different directions without falling over.

Finally, we also made some changes to our tactics, and improved some visualization tools to help us keep an overview of what the robot is doing during the games.

Today, we had a lot of chances to test out, whether our changes actually work out: With 6 Drop-in, and 4 regular games we were busy all day. Luckily, thanks to our cooperation with the WF Wolves, together we were able to have our robots play in all games, while also covering several referee duties.

However, not everything went perfect today and at one point it looked really dark for us: When we replaced our cameras earlier this year, we did not keep in mind the additional weight. While our modified head stayed intact, the part connecting the head to the body wasn’t made for the additional forces and broke. After our game against ZJLabers, the heads of three of our four robots were detatched from their bodies. Things looked dire, until a smart idea saved the day. We repurposed one of our metal parts, which were less likely to break, and attached the head to it. This way we were able to keep on playing with the new camera and perform many great moves in the remaining games. Unfortunately we haven’t been rewarded with any wins yet, but we keep on trying our best and are excited for the coming days.