During the short stay here in Brazil we already saw some exotic animals.

The first animals which we found and which were unknown to us were slugs. All over the beach slugs can be found, creeping lively on the sand. The moment Judith wanted to take a closer look at one of them, an agitated Brazilian woman came to her: “Don’t touch… Dangerous!”
After we returned to the hotel we checked what slugs we found:
It is an African periwinkle, which was imported for farming and is declared as delicacy. However, they started to proliferate in the wild, where they can transfer for example meningitis by parasites. We will better leave them alone.

Unfortunately the other animals could just be watched from our window. A family of lemures was climbing on the palm tree in front of the hotel window. The small monkeys with a body tail proportion of 1:1 were really lively and difficult to watch under the palm leaves. You can decide yourself how cute they are while watching the pictures 😉

To kill time at the gate (2 hours) we wanted to give our robots the opportunity to stretch their legs. As an error occured in the demo script, we placed Wheatley in an airport buggy to show him the terminal. In the meantime Nils fixed the bug.
The departure was on time and was followed by a short flight to Paris. We just had a short stay at the Charles de Gaulle airport, but we managed to pass most of the checkings quickly (more than two boarder supervisors wouldn’t be a bad idea for the amount of travellers…) and so there was time left for a short shopping. We bought chocolate and a french riddle magazine for amusement during the transatlantic flight.

For the long stay on board the riddle magazine alone was not a satisfying amusement. For this reason we were coding or we used the in flight entertainment system and the handed blankets and pillows for sleeping. The quality of the meals was very delicious, but the particular amount of food left some team mebers hungry. In particular in the vegetarian meal there were some kalories missing, but in return for this it was served clearly ahead of the others. We were especially glad for Dennis that everything worked well with the gluten free meal despite of some trouble we had during registering for it. At approximatly 4 pm brasilian time the first extensions of the south american continent appeared under our plane.

After the arrival in Rio de Janeiro the happenings of the last days were brought back to our memories: already at the passport cotrol the supervisors congratulated us to the win of the FIFA world championship. Behind the passport control we found Fuelco, the mascot of the FIFA world championship. Of course we took advantage of the situation and had a souvenir picture taken.

It seems to be unusual in Brazil that luggage is checked through to the final airport and so we had the chance to convince ourselves that also our luggage made it to the right country. Our plan was to directly check in our luggage again, pass the security check and spend the last five hours waiting time till the next flight at the gate. Unfortunatly the baggage check in opened just 2 hours in advance of the flight. For this reason we had the chance to send an expedition team to get in touch with the local food sources. A rich variation of food was located in the third floor of the aiport building, but the explorers were not able to get closer than 5 meter to each sale booth. Employees seemed to appear from nowhere to indefatigable promote the advantages of their english menu. After all team members were provided with food there was time to look and listen around. The latter appeared to be complicated as most of the announcements were made in Portugese. In general the knowledge of English was spread in different variety throughout the employees. Fortunately the see(curity)-check could be passed quickly. Last insight before the flight: Water from the water fountain could be probably used without any further treatment for a German swimming pool.
The flight to João Pessoa was a night flight and thats why not just our team but also most of the other passengers tried to sleep.
We left the aircraft at 1:20 a.m. on time, fetched our complete and intact luggage and met our contact person from the local transfer agency (who appeared to speak English very well). Surprisingly we already made it to the hotel at 3 a.m. We expected a lot more delay and a longer check out and for this reason we thought a room for another night is not necessary. We tried to make the best of the situation, left the luggage in the hotel and spend the time till sunrise at approximatley 5:30 a.m at the beach next to the hotel. During this time we took time by the forelock and made a first short meeting about the tasks for the next days.

As two of us dropped in at the hotel to ask for a toilet, the concierge surprised us with the offer to take two of the four rooms in advance and a breakfast for all of us for just a little extra charge. An offer we could not refuse.

And once again: GlaDOS, Wheatley, Atlas, Tamara, Wilma and Fiona at Hamburg Airport. This time the trip goes to a land, that was in the headlines the last weeks: Brazil. Shortly after the end of the FIFA World Cup, the RoboCup World Championship takes place in the northeast of Brazil – and of course, the Hamburg Bit-Bots are present!
Because of the air connection we will travel nearly 24 hours until we arrive and that’s why we are sitting in the midnight at the airport. First realization: Until half four am. you are not allowed to go into the departure lounge, but you can wait in the arrival area and there is even power and wifi. Most passengers – that arrive that early – use their time to take a nap, instead of working.
Shortly after the check-in and the security check, which was pretty uncomplicated, we are now at the gate and waiting for the plane. Let’s see, what’s coming up next.

Still very tired from participating at  the GermanOpen last week, a part of our team is already on their way to Teheran where the IranOpen will take place. Next to some teams from the iran, the Fumanoids and Bold Hearts will also be there and give us the possibility for an exciting rematch. How well we can report about the tournament is not entirely clear by now, but we hope we can at least give you some small updates from time to time.

The long awaited new member has arrived just in time for the crucial phase of the season. From now on Fiona will be joining the Hamburg Bit-Bots. Now she has to show her power in the final training camp if she wants to score a place in the starting formation at the GermanOpen. This could be bad news for the lastly disease-ridden Atlas. However there are also unconfirmed rumors, that Atlas is working hard on a comeback as a goalkeeper.

But even if Fiona should not join the starting formation, the management will keep an eye on her and her play after half-time break at the latest.
Regardless of the potential tension, we are very happy about her arrival and keep our fingers crossed for a quick success.

After a thrilling final match with a lot of chances for both teams Team Darwin from the USA won 7:4 against AUTMan from the Iran. Congratulation.

Just now the 3rd place match has ended. With 5:1 the ZJUDancer from China have won against the CIT Brains Kid from Japan.

Yesterday it was the eighth day here in Eindhoven and the long days slowly undermine our strength. Nevertheless we were active in development and exchange with other teams.

At the quarterfinal we kept our fingers crossed for the Fumanoids – unfortunately unsuccessfull as they lost against CIT Brains Kid with 0:7. Afterwards we had a big technical discussion together and developed an idea on how to make the feet of our Darwins more human-like. After some planing we began to work on a prototyp in the evening. The first results seem to be promising ad we will do further research on this idea.
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Parallely and together with the Fumanoids we gave the visitors a chance to try for themself how difficult it is for a roboter to move. They controlled some fieldplayers of the Fumanoids and tried to score goals against our goalies Glados and Tamara (yes, were obviously training her for every purpose). Thanks to some great movements of our goalies it was not an easy task.

With Tamara we also did some tests with a ball of standard-football-size. Even though the ball was nearly bigger than her, she managed to kick it!

We also did some tests with our printed heads and Atlas.

The pictures of the day: