Letztes Jahr hat uns kurz nach unserer Rückkehr aus Bordeaux der MDR besucht und uns interviewt. Hier der komplette Beitrag!
We are the HTWK Robots - a robotics football team that participates in RoboCup Standard Platform League. Here, all teams compete with identical robots that operate autonomously during gameplay.
In 2018, we won the RoboCup in Montréal. As of 2023, we are the vice world champion.
Letztes Jahr hat uns kurz nach unserer Rückkehr aus Bordeaux der MDR besucht und uns interviewt. Hier der komplette Beitrag!
With championship season fast approaching, we are getting ready to get back in the game. Check out our recent reel on instagram from our time at Spin2030. Stay tuned for more updates coming soon!
We knew it was going to be a tough one, and it was. Still working on adapting to the new environment and it's lighting conditions, well, let's say this game laid out a roadmap of what we needed to do moving forward - an upside to having to play against a strong team very early on. If all went well after this, we could be pretty certain to see them again in the final.
This match also featured the visual referee challenge, Ayleen from B-Human tells us all about it at the beginning of the video.
Starting today, we'll take a look at the matches we had during RoboCup 2023. I'll call it RoboCup '23 Review for now, copyright pending. We filmed all our matches and of course, we want to make them available to you. Let's start chronologically:
The Australian team from the University of New South Wales (UNSW, hence the brilliantly punny name) is a force to be reckoned with. A third place at last year's RoboCup in Bangkok means a certain challenge - especially due to it being our first game of the tournament under less-than-ideal conditions. This time around, two fields were labeled Outdoor Fields and while we weren't granted some fresh air - too bad! - the lighting certainly put everyone through a stress test. The washed out contrasts between turf and lines was pretty disorienting for the Naos - the poor guys didn't even know where to look much less than where to shoot some of the time. On the plus side, the lighting made them look pretty metal before I figured out how to adjust my filming on the fly (for the most part):
I also interviewed Mikhail, the team leader of rUNSWift - he'll give you some insight into what they were working on and what to watch out for before the video starts, he's a pretty cool guy!
During the half time break, there is another special treat: Our very own team leader Rico explains how rUNSWift had already lost the game on a technicality and how, at the same time, we still hadn't won.
So with no further ado, here is the entire video:
Oh what a great game our second match with Romes SPQR was! After the first half, we were already ahead with 4:0, which is already quite a lead!
Then the second half went even better, ending the game with a nail-biting attack on SPQR. With only a few seconds on the clock, the ball was kicked over the goal line in the last second of the game, setting the score to 10:0! As this was our quarterfinal game, we are happy to announce to see you tomorrow for our semifinal!
Suspenseful matches and critical bug fixes on the fly marked our group phase of this year’s RoboCup. Still, we consider the first half of the competition a net positive since we won all of our matches except one.
The first game against our Australian colleagues from rUNSWift ended 3:0 for us. This match made us painfully aware that our robots have major problems standing back up and walking smoothly on the artificial turf. The stark lighting differences across the field didn’t help either.
These issues also appeared in our second match against our old-time rival B-Human which we had to conclude 8:0. However, it was a match of 5 against 7 since all our other robots were getting their injuries treated at the Nao Clinic – that softened the blow a little.
So we went into the night with many tasks on our hands: improving the walk, creating a new stand-up motion, rethinking team strategy among others. Throughout the next day, we applied more and more fixes to our code, and we were rewarded with a 7:0 against our friends from Frankfurt – the Bembelbots.
On top of that, we managed a 4:0 against the Italian team SPQR in a truly spectacular match. Not everything ran smoothly (and of course we found more bugs) but we saw a steep increase in our robots’ performance. Shoutout to the HULKs who kindly lended us one of their best robot-bodies for the second half against SPQR after one of ours got badly damaged after a referee dropped it. The solution was quite easy – detach Deep Impact’s head from the damaged body and frankenstein it onto the HULK.
Today was the last game of the group phase, which we played against NomadZ from Zürich. With the newly implemented stand-up motion and 6 robots on the field, we managed to win the game 6:0. However, we discovered some problems with balancing, localization and line detection. All in all it seems like we are establishing a tradition: starting the RoboCup with major problems but improving our software over the following days to establish a reliable game play – a true Turniermannschaft. With confidence, excitement and a long list of To-dos we're looking forward to the hot phase of the competition – the Kick-Offs!
Later this afternoon, at 16:30 we will be playing in the quarter-finals agains the SPQR-Team from Italy. Join us live here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HR9bmxi4EQ4. Seeing how the game we played yesterday played out, we anticipate an interesting match.
On our second day of competition at RoboCup2023 we had 2 games to play. The first in the not so early hours of the morning against our friends, the Bembelbots from Frankfurt. This game was packed with action and blinding light from the sun. In the end we managed to win this game 8 to 0.
Later in the afternoon we had a thrilling game against the SPQR-Team from Italy. In this game we could witness great defending, beautiful dribbling and a missed penalty kick. This game was closer than the one in the morning at 4 to 0 for us.As for every game, the edited match videos will be uploaded to our Youtube channel in the following days. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtF1RHsnDRkqDocerRjvfAQSooo let's quickly recap this day:
First, the good news: we won our first match against the Australian Team rUNSWift 3:0 and successfully competed in the Dynamic Ball Handling Challenge.
Then the not so good news: We lost our second game of the day against the very strong competitor B-Human from Bremen, Germany with a final score of 0:8. We want a rematch. Today! Right now! Or maybe, more realistically, on one of the next days of competition, which is fine too.
Still, we look forward to the next days of competition and will continue to improve our strategy and software, the next game will start tomorrow at 11am - against our friends from Frankfurt, the Bembelbots!, so stay tuned for that!
All games of the day will be uploaded to our YouTube Page, with additional Information and Interviews, see you tomorrow for another exciting day of robot Soccer action!
We won our first game of this year's Robocup in Bordeaux! After a good first half with one goal for us, there was a package violation on ruNSWift's side, deciding the game in our favor and making the second half more like a test or training game.
Nonetheless, an important step in this competition and in the limited time of the Robocup a much appreciated training session for our team! The cut video, containing interviews with team members of both competitors, will be live on our YouTube channel soon!
The next game of today will be against B-Human, there will also be a video of the game on our channel.
Also: Today we will compete in the Dynamic Ball Handling Challenge, which is all about passing the ball precisely over long distances
Today is the first game day and the matches have already begun! In our first match, we'll face off against rUNSWift from the University of New South Wales in Syndey, Australia. Unfortunately, there is no live stream on the outdoor field but not to fret: we're capturing everything and are even including a short interview with Mikail from rUNSWift as well as our own review and analysis!
A day's worth of train travelling, abandoned luggage, the subsequent terror warning and the just about baaaaaaarely avoided threat of having to stand for 2 hours from Paris to Bordeaux can't dim our sparkle:
That's right, one year after last year's showdown in Bangkok we're back! Not necessarily with a vengeance, but with a deep commitment to climbing back to the top and a vivid memory of a spectacular run but losing the final. If that amounts to being back with a vengeance, then that might be true, I can't tell. Either way, we were certainly busy these pasts months: adding new functionalities, optimizing what we already had and even building our own training machines. Our team has also noticeably grown over the past few months and that strength is certainly coming in handy now - as per usual, we are moving heaven and hell: our schedule certainly is tight and our ambitions ever so high. Will we be able to transcend our previous success? Well, let's take a look at some of what we got:
"This year's updated rules called for a complete overhaul of our team strategy", says Rico, our team leader: "The constantly decreasing data budget during game play isn't a new development but having to coordinate seven robots on the field is certainly more than just a incremental adjustment". With fourteen robots on the field there is bound to be some rough play - something we're well acquainted with. Running dynamic maneuvers, making interdependent decisions within the team - a sizable project but indispensable for a successful tournament. We can be sure our competitors won't just be skipping this part. But with our reaction times shortened and our communication channels streamlined, we are now more efficient than ever.
Another major improvement takes us back to our roots: something as seemingly simple as walking remains an integral part of a successful RoboCup campaign. Sleep on improving your stability and speed and you’ll wake up on the ground – struggling to get up, struggling to pay for repairs. Hence, optimization on this end has to be done with special attention to robot safety. We built a special contraption to aid us in this, long time followers might remember it’s spiritual predecessor.
Tobias, who worked on the walking optimization and designed it in a way so that it can be operated remotely explains how we approached the project: “We’re using a black box optimizer, building on substantial advances in research of the past years. Our System tests out various parameter sets and we’re sending back feedback on how successful this attempt was. In this way, our program learns interdependencies and explores the parameter space.” Thomas, who designed the first ever walking algorithm for our team, adds: “We’re mainly focused on stability here. Speed is another option, but it’s always a trade-off”.
Right now, we’re on day 2 of preparation and test games are being played all around us before the actual RoboCup starts tomorrow. Stay tuned!
Wir sind auf diesen Freitag (23.06.2023) auf der Langen Nacht der Wissenschaften in Leipzig. Hier geht's zum Programm.
Update: Hat richtig Spaß gemacht und wir konnten viele BesucherInnen aller Altersklassen für die Naos begeistern und auch mit der Vorfreude auf die Weltmeisterschaft anstecken. Hier ein Einblick:
Vergangenen Donnerstag waren Felix und Khanh aus unserem Team auf der feierlichen Eröffnung des Kompetenzzentrums Energieeffizienz durch Digitalisierung in der Industrie und Gebäuden (KEDi), haben das Team und unsere Projekte vorgestellt und natürlich auch für etwas Unterhaltung gesorgt.
Zur Vorstellung des KEDi als zentrale Anlaufstelle für Unternehmen aus der Industrie und dem Gebäudesektor gab es zahlreiche Impulsvorträge aus Industrie, Wissenschaft, Politik und Gesellschaft zum Thema und den konkreten geplanten Vorhaben. Das Rahmenprogramm wurde von Technologieorganisationen aus der Region gestaltet wie bspw. dem MITZ Merseburg oder uns.
Stets motiviert die phantastische Welt des Roboterfußballs der Übrigen näher zu bringen sind wir mit 3 Robotern und einem kleinen Spielfeld angereist und haben uns und den RoboCup vorgestellt. Die Teilnehmenden konnten selbst einen Nao mit einem Controller steuern, versuchen Tore zu schießen und dabei über den Bildschirm mitverfolgen, wie die Roboter über ihre Kameras das Spielfeld und den Ball erfassen. Parallel dazu ließen wir die neuesten Videos von der GORE laufen, um zu zeigen, wie das Ganze aussieht, wenn alles autonom geschieht und ein gegnerisches Team den eigenen Spielalgorithmen in die Quere kommt.