The Robot Soccer World Championship is over
Guy Hoffman
Two minutes to the end of the final game. The Iranian striker advances with the ball,
Elegantly bypasses the Italian defender with a strong and accurate kick
Determines 1:3 for Iran. The final whistle gives the signal for the eruption
The Iranian fans to the field. The chants of "Iran, Iran" were heard
More long hours in the main building of the competition - RoboCup99
The World Robot Soccer Championship, held for the third time.
80 teams from all over the world spent the days between July 27th and 6th
August in an old school building from the 17th century in Stockholm, ibid
The competition took place.
Why build robots that play soccer? The motivation, beyond
As for the sportive, she is scientific. The competition organizers believe
that the competition can help advance research in artificial intelligence
and robotics, which will eventually come to fruition in needs
industrial and public, such as firefighting or space research. as per
The world RoboCup organization, in 2050 the robots will win the champion
The human world in football. In the meantime, there is nothing to fear. under
Underneath the sophisticated, sometimes even impressive, performances of
The metal players, a severe lack of simple logic stood out.
The championship was divided into four leagues: the simulation league, the league
The small robots, the medium robot league, and the dog league
Sony's. Each game lasts 20 minutes (two halves of 10 minutes,
and another 10 minute break). In the simulation league, the games continue
10 minutes.
Dogs don't know how to play
The simulation league, the largest (38 teams), did not include
Real robots, but only software. Software, CMUnited99
from Carnegie Mellon University, left the competition behind and took
the championship
Sony's Dog League (see Captain Web 107) was held
for the first time this year and aroused the greatest curiosity in the competition. seven
Teams competed, three robots in a team. This was the time
The first legged robots play soccer. But as a size
The expectation is the size of the disappointment.
The dogs, which Sony started marketing this year, are intended to be used as a replacement
for pets Indeed, the robots exhibited a lot of canine behavior
More than sporty. They spent most of their time dealing with each other
The second and a useless walk around the field. after a few seconds
A pile of dogs would often form on the artificial grass,
Waving plastic legs in the air and trying to get up.
In the final of the dog competition, the French and the Australians met. The referee started
The robots immediately rushed to jam into each other as the ball rolled
to the other side of the field. Most of the game the spectators just shouted "Yes, it is."
It. This is the ball!” towards the struggling players. When a dog notices a ball
He immediately receives loud applause from the audience. the first half
It ended with a score of 1:0 for the French, from an own goal by the Australians.
The final result: 3:1 for France. The dogs were disappointed.
The Singaporean threat
Lovers of speed and sophistication found their satisfaction in the Robot League
The little ones - 15 teams participated this year. The diameter of the robots, 15 cm,
Height: 10 cm, 5 players in a group. While in Sony's league
(And in the league of mid-sized robots, later) every robot runs
Separate software and no communication between the robots, here is the game,
which takes place on a ping-pong table with an orange golf ball, is photographed
From above with a digital camera.
The images are fed into each group's computer, and the central software analyzes
the situation on the field and activates, via remote control, the players
the tiny ones This method allows for speed and much more complicated tactics
than in the other competitions.
The surprise of the little league were the two teams from Singapore, RobotIS
and-. Star Lucky The RobotIS players skated on the field with grace
And in coordination, and at a speed four times higher than the American teams
the experienced ones. A rumor circulated in the corridors that they were analyzing pictures
The video at a speed of 60 frames per second, twice as fast
The processing in the human brain.
In the quarter-finals, the Singapore team Lucky Star met the team
of Carnegie Mellon University, CMUnited the champion of games
1997 and 1998 and the big favorite this year as well. Lucky Star doesn't
Impressed with the double title and sent CMU home in the quarterfinals.
Manuela Varuso, who headed the CMU delegation for the three years
Lately, it's hard to digest the failure.
What happened to the number one favorite of the competition?
"It's hard to know. This year we changed our strategy to something sophisticated
much more. We had to play last year's software
And maybe we would have won."
The robots from Singapore seem relatively fast
for your robots.
"True, their robots have very powerful engines. Robots like
Ours, who spend a lot of time planning and thinking, lose to robots
Like LuckyStar, which plays very simply but very fast. It
Sad, but true." The second Singapore group, RobotIS
reached the semi-finals without conceding a single goal. to spectators in the hall
There was no doubt that this year the final would be Singaporean.
But the semi-final was a completely different story. RobotIS met the FU
Fighters from Berlin, a team that spent more than a year developing a method
her game. They stood firm, in the best tradition of the tactical game
The German, and managed to stop RobotIS' race to the crown, with
A surprise 3:5 victory, won by the Big Red team from the university
Cornell Lucky Star from Singapore. The Singapore story is over.
The FU Fighters from Berlin and Big Red from Cornell appeared in the finals.
The German robots are lower, equipped with multi-propellers
Power at the front of the machine that gives them the strongest kick
in the tournament. Big Red, a little bigger, faster, and kicking
With the help of a full rotation of the robot's body. Weird, but effective.
Already in the first minute, the Americans won a penalty. The American kicker
scored Two minutes later, another penalty. 0:2 to Cornell. Survivor
of another mistake in the German defense, and the result is 0:3 until halftime
The Americans led 0:5. The Germans failed to recover. the result
The final: 0:15 in favor of the Americans. Crisis in German football.
Andrew Hoffman, a graduate student at Cornell University and one
The students who built and programmed the winning team: "We are very
Proud of our achievements here. We started from nothing, we only had
Video footage of the competition from last year."
Will you defend your title next year?
"Not us. We all graduate this year, I hope
May the next generation of Cornell students continue the tradition."
Almost all the games in the little robot leagues ended in defeats
Humiliations of 15:0 or 20:0 result in tight results like the 5:3 in the half
The finals were the exception. Manuela Varuso tries to explain:
"The reason is that human actors react emotionally to the fact that they are
are losing These robots don't really care. They do them
Mistakes if the result is 0:0 or 10:0 for us, the big challenge
is to make robots adapt their behavior to what is happening
in the field".
Come on, Iran, come on
The mid-sized robot league is the main competition in my games
The RoboCup. 20 teams competed this year. The diameter of the players is 50 cm,
Five robots in a group. Iran came to the competition without any chance,
With robots that are made up of parts found in almost every home and with software
which is fully loaded on a single diskette, compared to tens of megabytes of
The software used by the Germans, for example. The Iranians won the half
and in the quarter finals the two Singaporean teams.
In this competition, which takes place on a field measuring 5x9 meters, and with football
Real (only orange), there is no central control of the entire squad. Any robot
Stands on its own and you have to decide for yourself how to behave. The robots
They are the size of office vacuum cleaners and have cameras mounted on them,
Sonars and sometimes even whole laptops. The fact that
that the robots rely solely on the receptivity of their own sensors and not
can communicate with the other robots hurts the tactical level of
the game The main interest here is in the technical tricks that each one puts forward
A team trying to bring the ball towards the goal.
The real final game took place in the semi-finals, when the blue team of
Italy met the strong German team. It was an exciting game
most in the competition, which brought back all those present to the drama of the final
The World Cup in Spain 1982 then, as I recall, Italy won 3:1
At the end of the close game the score was 0:0 going to penalty kicks
(from 2 meters). The Italians scored goals in 2 of the 5 kicks.
The audience held its breath as the German kicker, an oversized robot with
A troll doll is assembled on him, he stood in front of the Italian goalkeeper, who got smart
and carried two cameras, one for each side.
In the first two kicks the German kicker didn't even find the
the ball, and is disqualified. But the Germans never lose kicks
punitive. Indeed, in the remaining 3 kicks the Germans managed to equalize
2:2 At this stage, the robots enter the "technical challenge" round.
That is, one of the robots is nominated in an unknown position relative to the ball
and goal and he has to score in the shortest time. At the end of the set round
The Indian judge that the Germans were ahead of the Italians by 19 thousand
the second.
Germany in the final? Not yet. In an unexpected burst of decency informs
The Germans who are ready for a rematch due to the close result.
The Italian robot does not get confused and scores from the center of the pitch with an advantage of
About 10 seconds on the Germans. The Italians advance to the grand final.
In the final, the Iranian team awaited them - a clumsy team, the robots
Its consists of plywood held in adhesive paper and carrying cameras
Home video. While the Italians were proud of the fact that every robot
And Robot has software that examines the condition of the entire lot to find the
The best strategy, the Iranians settled for simple software
the most, which only takes into account the relative position of each robot to the ball and the goal
of the opponent.
However, the Iranians had tricks the likes of which had never been seen before
In the .RoboCup their robots were able, with the help of mechanics
special, to move in a semi-circle around the ball, so that they could improve positions
to kick, unlike other robots that only moved in straight lines.
This trick, which was performed with impressive speed, together with the fact that the software
Theirs was so simple, made them move at a higher speed than that
of the Italians, who stopped to think every few seconds. Besides, to the goalkeeper
Theirs were fans that opened up and stopped long shots.
Already in the second minute, an Iranian robot is piled on the Italian goalkeeper
and scores the first goal. The Iranian audience goes out of its way.
The Iranians continue to attack throughout the first half and only make a mistake
of the Iranian goalkeeper allows Italy to equalize at halftime.
In the second half, after a quick software fix, the Iranians are no more
are wrong In an excellent move, an Iranian robot overtakes the Italian defender
And determines - 1:2. A similar move, only 30 seconds later, raises the
The result is 1:3 and crowns Iran with the title of new world champion
For the year 1999, the world of robotics stands amazed at the news
from Tehran.
Hamitra Zatsitsas, of Sharif University in Tehran, is a designer
The Iranian robots, was very upset after the big victory.
Nevertheless, he spared two minutes to talk to "Captain Internet".
First participation in the competition and already winning the crown. how is the feeling
"The feeling is great. All our efforts led to this wonderful moment.
We have been working on this project for over 15 months. per year
Last year we were not allowed to participate in the competition and today we did it like
that we dreamed".
Did everything work as you planned?
"no, not at all. We have been working on the software to introduce improvements
Even during the week of the competition. Our game today is much more
Better than at the beginning of the competition."
Will the Iranian government be interested in following the victory?
Special in such projects?
"I believe so. It's a big win, and it gives a boost
Significant for the field of technology in Iran. I hope now
There will be a growing interest on the part of the government as well."
Next year the competition will be held in Melbourne, Australia, at the same time
For the European Championship in the Netherlands, there will be a European tournament for robots
In Amsterdam, May 2000, the organizers of the competition promise a league
to humanoid robots already in 2003. A few more years, when we hear the
The phrase "the next generation of footballers", will no longer be clear if
It means people.
Where is the map and where are we?
High school students represented Israel in the youth competition, and that's it
Israel had no representative in the main competition this year, but in the exhibition
The "Robo-Cup Junior", an exhibition dedicated to the next generation of engineers
The robots, which took place at the same time as the seniors' championship, participated
Eyal Yodsin, Irit Kotona, Yonatan Singer and Gil Porat, four
High school students, who, instead of studying for their high school diplomas, got busy with construction
A robot known as "Stanga-bot", or "Stan" for short. They marked
First Israeli foot in the "Robo-Cup" events.
"Stan", quite a monster, made up of parts that look like they were found
In my home depot, I was able to shoot small rubber balls at the goal,
and trick a goalkeeper who is directed by a human. The impromptu appearance of
The robot is not deceiving: it was indeed built, part by part, at night
long as part of high school robotics studies. The four young men
They seem so in love with the robot that they have no problem turning a blind eye
from all the wires and strips of isoliraband protruding from every corner of the machine.
"All the other robots on display are commercial", explains Porat
Proudly, "Ours is the only robot in 'Junior' that is actually built
from nothing Simply because we didn't have a budget." Despite this, according to them
Their robot is the most sophisticated on display. “The other robots
Here they are operated by remote control," says Gil, "only our robot
Autonomous, and decides by himself how and when to shoot at the goal, according to location
The goalkeeper".
Irit Kotona, who was responsible for the hardware in the project, adds:
"It should also be remembered that other groups used ready-made hardware, ie
It was a pure software project. We built hardware, everything from scratch."
What you build alone, in the end you also fix alone. Towards the moment of truth, suddenly
nothing works. "Stan" shoots bullets everywhere, and goes too far
Once involuntary forays into the goal. Irit approaches with the soldering iron
for last minute renovations. "Stan" responds with a turn that rips a pipe
Central air in the system. After a slight hysteria, everything works out and "Stan"
comes back to himself
The students and instructors of the Israeli group have complaints about the money
The little that is invested in Israel in technological education of this kind. "there are not any
There is a budget for this in the Ministry of Education," says Igor Werner, an associate of
The group is from the Technion in Haifa. "And you have to understand that competitions of this kind
can give a real boost to the advancement of technological education in Israel.
You just have to invest resources in it."
"In a month I'm enlisting," says Yudsin. "So another three years
I'm breaking free. So I have no doubt that there will be an Israeli team
Robo-Cup in four years. If you ask me, that's an estimate
pessimistic".
