We have a new robot.
It has been built completely by us. It sadly does not quite adhere to the rules of our league, because it is not humanoid. It can not even move by it self. It can only move its head.
He is not designed to play in our league though. We wanted a robot that is not complex to use it to generate images for our Imagetagger or to test our vision algorithms. In this robot only three actuators are used. Usually our robots only have two actuators for the head, but with the third actuator we are able to gain another degree of freedom for the head. This allows us the bring the head in a sidewards leaning position. This is not necessary for our robots in a game, but they still move the head in the same way in a normal game, because for example the way they walk. This robot allows us to capture pictures with this in mind and have even more realistic pictures.
The few actuators also allow us to not be dependant on any other parts of the robot and thus reduce the complexity for our use case. We also do not need to use a robot while testing or calibrating and we can work at the same time on our robots that are allowed to play.
Another feature is the height adjustable pole which allows us to take pictures from the perspective of many different robots.

Even though this robot is very simple, it still opens up many new possibilities for our vision.

 

After the Fumanoids had won against the Bold Hearts with 5:0, we were afraid of our first opponent in the tournament. For some inexplicable reasons (something with WiFi?) the Fumanoids’ robots weren’t operational. Most of time in the first half time they didn’t do anything, while our robots felt to ground in entertaining ways, stood up again, walked some steps, felt again just to walk in the different direction afterwards. The last 30 seconds were the most exiting part of the match. A now working robot of the Fumanoids tried to dribble the ball towards our goal, but felt onto the ball just a few centimeters in front of our goal. The game was whistled to a close: 0-0 — draw.

The match against the Bolds Hearts followed shortly. It was again a mostly unspectacular match. In the final phase of the match one of the Bold Heart’s robots started an attack to their own goal. They had luck, the game was closed by the whistle before the attack could be executed successfully.

For the group phase we reached the seconds place in our group. Tomorrow at 11 am (8:30 am in CEST) we will play against the first Iranian opponent in the intermediate round, AEhuman.

The ranking of the other group was determined by penalty shootout, because all teams had the same amount of points: zero.

Ranking group A:
1. Parand
2. MRL
3. AEhuman

Ranking group B:
1. Fumanoids
2. Hamburg Bit-Bots
3. Bold Hearts

More impressions of the tournament in our image gallery:

The group phase will start tomorrow. We were drawn into group B, together with the Fumanoids (from Berlin) and the Bold Hearts (from England). In group A are Parand, AEhuman and MRL (all three are teams from Iran).

– 10:15/07:45 – Fumanoids vs. Bold Hearts
– 14:00/11:30 – Fumanoids vs. Hamburg Bit-Bots
– 16:30/14:00 – Bold Hearts vs. Hamburg Bit-Bots

(times: Tehran/Hamburg)

Since Sunday evening our team is in Teheran. We arrived with a short delay of about two hours at the airport. From there we went to our accommodation to get some sleep. We woke up and it felt like night due to the time shift.

The event site was a positive surprise – the area for the humanoid league was almost completely prepared in the morning of the first  setup day.

While our team is preparing for the competition, you can look at some pictures of today morning:

As usual we were in the hall even before 9 am. But this time there were security checks, everybody was checked, and the backpacks were either scanned or searched per hand. This was done, because a high-level politician (a representative of the province) was expected to come

That day we mainly watched the matches. In our league, the final match was slow and dragged on. The CITBrains (Japan) played against the ZJUDancer (China). After normal time nobody had scored and just in the play-offs the CITBrains scored and became this year’s World Champions.

A lot more interesting was the final match of the middle size league, which was also watched by the representative. They played with driving, one meter high robots which are heavy and quick, and shoot nearly as strong as the average human. A chinese team (Water) and a team of the netherlands (Tech United Eindhoven) made it to the top.

In the first half the match was balanced with the same amount of scoring chances, but the chinese team scored three times and the dutch team once.

The second half was different, the dutch played offensive and scored a goal, but the chinese were more effective and used one of their few chances. So it ended 4:2 and the chinese team “Water” became winner of the league.

Even more exciting was the final of the adult size league, in which the robots are nearly as large as humans. They play one on one and it is the goal to dribble the ball around obstacles and shoot the ball in the goal where the other robot is goalkeeper.

This has to happen within a certain time and proceeds like the penalty shoot out (five alternating chances and play-off afterwards). A team from the USA (THORwIn) and a new team from the Iran (Baset) played. First the US-american team was in the lead with two goals, but after a few miss-kicks the iranian team catched up and the round of decision began.

After several goals in a try of the us-american robot the ball crossed the goalline just after the time had run out, but it counted as the robot had shot before the time was over. Afterwards it was turn of the iranian team, and it looked like the ball would go into the goal, but the robot touched an obstacle which counted as an unsuccessful trial.

After the finals there was a victory ceremony, and to conclude the evening many teams went to the inner city to a few bars.

Thursday they will be at the Symposium, listen to a lot of lectures and present Hambot. Afterwards will be a farewell-party.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yesterday the first group phase ended. In the morning we played against the empty goal (the fourth “team” in the group as not all teams ha showed up). What would be easy in human soccer was still difficult for robots, as it is hard to decide which goal is the own and which the other. Our match ended without us scoring an own goal, but unfortunately, no goals were scored since we weren’t able to walk on the artificial turf well enough to reach the ball or kick it.

Now all matches of the group phase had ended without one goal so that a penalty shootout tok place to sequence the teams. Even here none of the teams scored, so the time it took each of the teams to get to the ball was measured. We were ranked third with 0.36 seconds difference to the second.

Or next match was against the fourth-ranked of another group. The Kudos from South Korea had similar strenghts and weaknesses as we have, so the match ended 0:0 after the normal time. Together we decided to leave out the play-off and start directly with the penalty shootout. As here was no goal scored either the time was measured again. We reached the ball quicker but touched it one time less and thus exited the championship.
That’s a pity, but now we can use our time here to swap ideas on soft- and hardware problems and can show the other teams our platform Hambot.

Today it got serious, after two set-up days in the hall the first group phase in our league began as the opening was still going on. The CIT Brains Kid, current World Cup holders, beat Robo-Erectus Junior 4:0 and demonstrated they’re in the running.

Three and a half hours later we started with our first match (against the Robopatriots). As reported, Kuddel got hurt in the goal. On the one side irritating, on the other side the part was “just” a prototype and he was operational after we had assembled the new, better version within an hour.

Just as the first match the second (against the Bold Hearts) ended 0:0. Tomorrow, one match remains to entering the second group phase. And maybe after Kuddel Cascade will have its first match.