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.

The day started for us at 7:30 with breakfast. Afterwards we headed with suitcases full of hardware and our robots to the hall, which opened at 9 am. We arrived a quarter of an hour early and had to wait in line. We decided to send Nils and Jessica ahead to register us. After an hour they returned with badges and two event-t-shirts for each of us.

With those we were allowed to enter the hall, past the queue and the security control with metal detectors. Inside the hall we organised ourself working space big enough for our team and began with our tasks.

Quickly we set up the infrastructure, carried out tests with our darwin-based robots on the artificial turf, tinkered on the hardware and finished tasks of the Technical- and Organisation Committee (which two of us are part of).

After one and a half hours we met and discussed the results as well as further course of action, after which we continued to tinker on the hardware, especially on the Hambots, and adjusted the software to the field to play on.

There are good news and bad news to this year’s condition: The good one is the artificial turf not being as bad as on the german open, and our small robots being able to walk on this turf. The bad one is just one of the four fields being unproblematic. On one it trickles from the ceiling so that there’s a puddle beside the field. On another there is a big unevenness in front of one goal, so that probably every robot will fall and it’ll be way harder to score on this side. The third field consists of multiple smaller parts which not just cause unevenness but also vary the colour of the turf.

This evening, after the team leader meeting, it will be decided how the groups are spread and on which field we’ll play, as each group will just play on one field so that the conditions are equal for everyone.

We did it, after 29 long hours we arrived in our hotel in Hefei. It was a long trip, with a short stay in Paris and a long stay (seven hours) in Shanghai, where we could shortly sniff the air. The planes flew without delays or disturbances and we weren’t hold up except for the usual Explosives Control of our robots and batteries.

Now we’re all alive and kicking in Hefei, except for one suitcase which went missing, we hope to get it delivered subsequently to our hotel.

In Hefei we were greeted by helpers of the organisation and brought to our five-stars fairytale castle. We are completely exhausted and look forward to sleeping.

More information and pictures follow tomorrow.

Never have our robots been this far from Hamburg: This year’s RoboCup World Championship takes place in Hefei, China. Driving by car this would mean a five-days drive, without break!

Our team members have it a little easier and take the plane, but the trip will still take about 30 hours, including an eight hour stay in Shanghai. We hope there won’t be delays, which wouldn’t be unlikely with this lenght and route of flight (Hamburg ✈️ Paris ✈️ Shanghai ✈️ Hefei).

The longest flight lasts eleven and a half hours, from Paris to Shanghai. At one point they flew in some distance to Hamburg:

But we can already celebrate a special achievement: As much as 13 team members will be taking part in the RoboCup World Championship in China. For a long time it was uncertain, as usual, wether we’d be able to participate at all. Being supported from within the university and from the outside made this possible. We provide one person each for the TC and the OC, for those the attendee fees were dropped. Also on of our team members will give a lecture about our platform Hambot and received special funding. (Costs for food and accommodation are payed by each member, as usual)

We stay curious when our team members will report again — and if yet still a typhoon disturbs the flight schedule.

Better late than never:

Of course we arrived safely in Hamburg. On Sunday we had watched both final games: The FUmanoids managed to score a regular goal in the final match against the russian team Photon, and became kings of the (artificial) gras with a 1:0! The final in the SPL league was also worth watching, the match was quite tactical, but on well-tried carpet. Here the B-Humans beat the team from Leipzig 3:1.

Meanwhile most of us problably caught up on sleep and what else we missed.

For that, we acquired (hopefully) nice experiences. On the one hand we now know what a scientific challenge artificial turf is, and are collaborating with other teams in our league. We are already working on reproducing a foot prototype with three points resting and pressure sensors which was developed at the University of Boston, so that we will work with one of those in China. It will be played on similar artificial turf there.

On the other hand it’s great to experience the sense of community when we cooked, and ate together or were tiredly fooling around. To experience the rush before a match, when everyone tried to put their changes on the robots. The excitement and anxiety during the match, if everything will work as planned.

We still have a lot to do until we fly to China, but are excited for the German Open next year in Magdeburg.

We all worried, hoped, worked and programmed, but still: We didn’t make it to the semi-final.

During the day we played against the Fumanoids and the WF Wolves.

 

We didn’t lose in a regular match, all round robin games ended 0:0, that’s why a penalty shootout took place.

To ensure a decision was made, the rules were changed: The goal was placed slightly to the right, so that no robot would have to walk over the line where two pieces of grass met, which posed a problem for all teams.

Additionally the procedure was set to five rounds: First a normal penalty kick was required, in the second try it was allowed to walk through the penalty area, in the third the point was to move the ball furthest towards the goal, in the fourth to move furthest in the direction of the goal, and in the last to move furthest.

The first round went eventless. In the second round the Fumanoids, the Bold Hearts and Photon managed to get the ball into the goal. The Wolves used their big robot, twice the size of our Darwins, which managed to walk further in the fourth round, while Tamara fought against the artificial turf and got stuck.

 

It’s slightly irritating that we performed better in the matches and managed to touch the ball, which not all teams did, but well.. .

We are going to be referees for the remaining matches, and will be concentrating on being able to walk on artificial turf in China.

Today we saw our worries from the last two days confirmed, the artificial gras is an extreme challenge for all teams. It is very difficult to stand up on it, not to mention walking on it. Although progress was made by the teams the round robin matches of today all ended with a score of 0:0.