For our trip to the RoboCup this year we decided to travel by car. Given the short distance to the south of France, this was the most practical choice as it allowed us to take more equipment with us, such as a 3D printer and monitors.

We picked up the nine-seater on Friday, packed everything and drove off around noon. The journey took about twenty hours in total, but it was manageable thanks to our five drivers. In between we made a small stop in Versailles behind Paris and wanted to take a look at the palace at night. However, restoration work was probably taking place and the entrance gate was covered with wooden panels.

We finally reached our destination on Saturday morning around nine o’clock. We live in a small house on a campsite right next to the Parc des Expositions where the RoboCup takes place. However, we couldn’t move into the house until 5 p.m., so we spent the day having an IKEA breakfast and going swimming. In the evening we were finally able to go into the house and immediately started to set up our workspace.

On Sunday we dedicated ourselves to the preparations for the RoboCup: screwing the robot together, testing the software, fixing errors and so on. On Monday we continued the preparations, but we also had the first contact with other teams: The HULKs, another team from Hamburg, also live at the campsite, we met the HERoEHs from Korea in the laundromat and tonight we’re going out with the Wolves from Wolfenbüttel.

Tomorrow, the exhibition center will open for the teams to begin their setup. Then the final tests are carried out in the real gaming environment and the competition can begin!