The 2014 World Cup championship title may belong to Deutschland, but another soccer competition — this time with robots taking the field — is just days away.
Students of Georgia Tech, also known as the RoboJackets’ RoboCup team , take off for Joao Pessoa, Brazil, Thursday to compete in the 2014 RoboCup, an international multi-league autonomous robotics soccer competition. RoboCup, which will be held July 21-24, was founded in 1997 by volunteer professors from around the world.
The ultimate goal of the RoboCup tournament is to develop a team of autonomous humanoid robots that can win against a human world champion soccer team in 2050. But in 2014, the RoboCup leagues vary in appearance, with the humanoid league still quite a bit away from human agility.
The RoboCup complies with the official rules of FIFA: two halfs, kickings, scorings, goals, fouls and side kicks. As of now, the only human input on the field comes from the referees.
The competition is held in a different country every year. Georgia Tech’s RoboCup team competed in Eindhoven, Netherlands, last year and Mexico City in 2012. They have yet to bring a championship trophy back to Atlanta, but they apply what they’ve learned for the next competition.
“I have enjoyed robotics since elementary school. I enjoy the different codes and algorithms they don’t teach you in school,” said Matthew Barulic, a junior majoring in computer science and also the teams’ treasurer. RoboCup is one of five RoboJackets teams.
RoboJackets’ RoboCup program started in 2007, with upgrades along the way, and competes in the small size RoboCup league.
Each team utilizes a pair of top-down-oriented cameras provided by the RoboCup organization that provide visual support based on a pattern of dots unique for each robot. A colored center dot deciphers teams from one another and gives team members a visual on the computer screen.
The Georgia Tech team developed its own program to implement coding to the robots’ program systems — the codes tell the robot what to do. These robots can pass, kick, dribble and shoot on their own with coding programmed by these adept students.
A team of six robots is limited to an 18 centimeter diameter and 15 centimeter height to be considered for the small league. They consist of four wheels that move the robot in any direction it wants to go. Once the robots are programmed, they operate without remotes.
Even if they don’t bring home trophies, the team members are proud of their efforts.
“I just keep looking forward. I have not looked back very much,” said Robby Woodworth, a fifth-year aerospace major.
According to Barulic, it takes roughly $2,000 to build one small robot along with electronics. The team is funded by sponsors and Georgia Tech’s student government association. All the work RoboJackets members put into their robots is done in the students’ free time.
Since the teams are apart from Georgia Tech classes, former students such as Emanuel Jones, who received his master’s in mechanical engineering, continue to come help, teach and build with current students.
“It is a great challenge and a great opportunity to get one-on-one with a lot of the other members and students and teach them all the things I’ve been able to learn for when they get to where I am,” said Jones, a product development engineer.
Once the students have tackled their high-tech tasks, they have another challenge — but this one is familiar to many of us:
Getting through airport security.
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