Servo - September 2007

Like a proud father with his son on his lap.

would be our last game for RoboCup 2007. They had impressive looking robots with fast and stable gaits, but from what we had seen during practice runs, their robot’s kicks were weak and inaccurate. Since this would be our last game for the year and we had not successfully scored a single point yet (though we scored a few goals during practice runs and had some really good games), our “goal” for this game was to score at least one goal. We adjusted the program to

DARwIn 2A attempting its focus on offense and just kick the ball with all its power whenever it had a chance. ^{famous left}Game 5 started and both team’s robots dashed to the ball, trying to dribble it towards the opponent’s kick (before it _{fell down).}goal. They kept on bumping into each other and would fall down. Both team’s robots had to be manually set back up, then they would dash to the ball again, collide, and then fall over. It looked more like a head-butting match than a game of soccer. At one point, the ball was near the corner of our goal and both teams dashed to it. Team Hephaestus’ robot was a tad bit faster, and reached the ball first. It readjusted its position to aim toward our goal. DARwIn was 10 cm behind the ball and tried to block it, but it was too late. Team Hephaestus’s robot tapped the ball ever so gently, and it rolled into our goal. Score is 0:1 as the first half ended.

As the second half starts, Team Hephaestus’ robots agressively attack and get to the ball first, kicking it towards our goal. There were several close moments, but luckily their kicks were weak, so the ball either didn’t reach the goal or missed the goal due to the low accuracy. DARwIn just couldn’t seem to get to the ball before the opponents, but at least DARwIn was behaving as we have programmed it to. It saw the ball correctly, located the goal correctly, kicked the ball strongly (though it fell down afterwards), and even followed the strategies we had taught it. We were like proud parents watching their kid’s soccer game. We all applauded as the whistle signaling the end of the game blew. Final score 1:0.

Professor Oscar von Stryk from Technische Universitaet Darmstadt watched the game with us and said we had done a fantastic job for a rookie team. No single team in RoboCup history has advanced to the semi finals in their first year. We miraculously resurrected both dead robots at the last minute, bravely attempted risky strategies to improve its play, cleverly entertained the audience with the malfunctioning DARwIn 2A’s acrobatic motions, and diligently fixed and tweaked the robots all night with little sleep. To us, we were true winners, and were still proud to represent Virginia Tech and the US!

FINAL STATS

When we first decided to start a RoboCup team, we really did not know what to expect. Though we were not able to win, it was an excellent experience working on this project. We learned a lot and made a lot of friends from all around the world. We shared our passion for robotics and ideas to improve each other’s robots.

We would like to thank all of our team members, especially those who could not make it to Atlanta, our fellow lab mates at RoMeLa who were such a big help, our sponsors, our fans from all around the world with their encouraging emails, and our advisor, Dr. Hong, for his passion for robotics and his constant support.

We shall return next year! With the next generation robot — DARwIn 3 — we will be a formidable opponent and a force to be reckoned with. As DARwIn says, “I’ll be back!” SV

TEAM: SPRInt (from left: Professor Dennig Hong, Jesse Hurdes, Robert Mayo, Karl Muecke, Brad Pullins) and Professor Oscar von Stryk from Technische Universitaet Darmstadt.