The idea of Robot Soccer

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The idea of Robot Soccer
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What is AI?

• Research in AI includes
• design of intelligent machines
• formalization of the notions of intelligence and
  rational behavior
• understanding mechanisms of intelligence
• interaction of humans and intelligent machines.

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Objectives of AI

• Engineering costruct intelligent machines
• Scientific understand what is intelligence.

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Can a robot do these?

• Understand?
• Simulate its environment?
• Act rationally?
• Collaborate and compete?
• Display emotions?

A bold claim
A team of Robots will beat the FIFA World Cup
champions by 2050!
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RoboCup - Aim

• pushing the state-of-the-art
• By mid-21st century, a team of fully autonomous
  humanoid robot soccer players shall win the
  soccer game, comply with the official rule of the
  FIFA, against the winner of the most recent World
  Cup.
• TO BOLDLY GO WHERE MAN HAS GONE BEFORE (cf. Star
  Trek)
• Formalised Testbed

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Do you really believe that a team of Robots
could beat the FIFA World Cup champions by 2050?

• By all accounts this may sound overly ambitious.
• In fact, if you compare this goal to other ground
  breaking achievements it is not ambitious at
  all.
• The Wright brothers' first airplane was launched
  and 50 years later man landed on the moon.
• Even more recently Deep Blue the computer
  programmed to play chess, played chess grand
  master Garry Kasparov and won -- roughly 50 years
  after the deployment of the first computer.
• It's a long time.
• Think what has happened since 1950.

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Power of AI
Is the following AI?

• In 1997 a computer, Deep Blue, won a chess match
  with world champion Kasparov.
• Accident?
• IBM paid Kasparov to loose?
• Brute force with no intelligence?
• So, what is intelligence?

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Simulation

• Turing test (1950)

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Chess versus soccer robot

• Difference of domain characteristics between
  computer chess and soccer robots

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Intelligent Agents

• Agents are situated
• Perception of environment
• Execution of actions
• Agents can communicate and collaborate
• they can differ
• than can compete and be more or less
  egoistic/altruistic
• The agents have
• objectives,
• communications,
• intentions.

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Professor Kim from KAIST
A New Approach
The founder of Robot Soccer and FIRA president
Two organizations 1. FIRA (earlier) 2. RoboCup
(larger)
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Four Blocks in two PCBs (Printed Circuit Boards)

• Micro-controller (upper PCB)
• Communication module (upper PCB)
• Motor and driving circuits (lower PCB)
• Power (lower PCB)

side view
front view
top view
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Importance of Robot Soccer

• Communication
• Cooperation
• Coordination
• Learning
• Competence
• Real Time

• Robot Soccer Evolution
• Computer simulations
• Wheeled brainless robots
• Wheeled autonomous robots
• Legged autonomous robots

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Robot Soccer Purpose

• The number one goal of robot soccer is not
  winning or losing, but accumulating diverse
  technology.
• - Mr. Dao (Senior VP of Sony Corporation).

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• Robot Soccer Competitions

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Robot Soccer?

• Robot Soccer competitions proposed to help
  collaborate and evaluate various approaches
• Software, hardware, electronics, sensors, motors,
  theories.
• Difficult problem, challenge for top universities
  and industries

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FIRA RoboCup

• History
• Category

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Integrating various technologies

• Autonomous agents
• Collaboration of agents
• Strategy acquisition
• Real-time information processing
• Mobile robotics and robot vision
• Hardware and software technologies

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• FIRA

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Index

• Introduction
• FIRA Robocup
• History
• Category
• Discussion Issues
• PSU soccer robot projects

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4th FIRA Robot Soccer World Cup Winners

• Notre Dame school, Campinas, Brazil (Aug 4-8,
  1999)
• MiroSot
• 1st RobotIS (Korea)
• 2nd SIOR (Korea)
• 3rd SOTY IV (Korea)
• NaroSot
• 1st RobotIS (Korea)
• 2nd Y2K2 (Korea)
• 3rd Olympus (Korea)

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RoboCup-99 Stockholm Winners

• Stockholm City Conference Center, Stockholm,
  Sweden(Jul.27 - Aug. 6, 1999)
• Conjunction with IJCAI-99
• Simulation League
• 1st CMUnited-99 (USA)
• Small Size League
• 1st The Big Red (USA)
• Middle Size League
• 1st CS Sharif (Iran)
• Sony Legged Robot League
• 1st Les 3 Mousquetaries (France)

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History
FIRA

• 1995 - Idea of Robot Soccer
• Prof. Jong-Hwan Kim (KAIST)
• Micro-Robot World Cup Soccer Tournament (MiroSot)
• Int. Organizing Committee for MiroSot (Sep.,
  1995)
• Pre-meeting on MiroSot
• Jul. 29 - Aug. 4, 1996, KAIST
• 30 teams from 13 countries
• Clear shape of MiroSot Rule

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1st MiroSot
FIRAhistory

• Nov. 9 - 12, 1996, KAIST
• 23 teams from 10 countries
• MiroSot
• Newton Research Lab. (USA)
• Single-MiroSot (S-MiroSot)
• Carnegie Mellon United Team (USA)
• Formulation of Soccer Robot

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2nd MiroSot
FIRAhistory

• Jun. 1 - 5, 1997, KAIST
• 22 teams from 9 countries
• MiroSot
• Newton Research Lab. (USA)
• OverDrive (MR, KAIST)
• S-MiroSot
• UFO (MaroTech, Korea)
• MIRAGE (KAIST)
• Development of vision technology
• Vision - 30(60) frames/sec.
• Beginning of FIRA

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FIRA Robot World Cup
FIRAhistory

• FIRA Robot World Cup 98
• Jun. 30 - Jul. 3, 1998, La Cite de Sciences
  Industrie, Paris, France
• NaroSot (Nano-Robot World Cup Soccer Tournament)
• 1st MIRO III (KAIST)
• S-KheperaSot (Khepera Robot)
• 1st STATIC, (Univ. of Aarhus, Denmark)
• MiroSot
• Four FIRA regional championships
• 1st The Keys (Human Interface Inc., Korea)
• Development of vision motor technology
• vision - 60 frames/sec
• motor - 2m/sec
• FIRA Robot World Cup 99

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Category
FIRA

• MiroSot
• NaroSot
• KheperaSot
• RaroSot

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MiroSot
FIRAcategory

• 3 robots on 1 team
• Size 7.5cm 7.5cm 7.5cm
• Ball orange golf ball
• Playground black wooden rectangular
  playground
• (150cm 130cm 5cm)
• Vision global vision system
• (more than 2m above playground)

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Experimental Setupof the Vision System

• Control panel

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NaroSot
FIRAcategory

• 5 robots on 1 team
• Size 4cm 4cm 5.5cm
• Ball orange table-tennis ball
• Playground , Vision same as Mirosot

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KheperaSot
FIRAcategory

• 3 robots on 1 team
• Ball yellow tennis ball
• Playground green playground (105cm 68cm
  20cm)
• Robot Khepera Robot
• Vision K213 Vision Turret

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RoboSot
FIRAcategory

• 3 robots on 1 team
• Size 15cm 15cm 30cm
• Ball red roller-hockey ball
• Playground black wooden rectangular
  playground (220cm 150cm 30cm)
• Vision on the robot
• Under preparation

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RoboCup

• A project directed by Carnegie Mellon University
  (CMU)
• Robot World Cup Soccer Games and Conferences
• Robots working, playing, and competing against
  each other
• Revolution in science and entertainment
• Breakthrough in the fields of robotics and AI
• Goal to culminate all the challenges in AI like
  temporal reasoning, machine learning, vision
  processing, obstacle avoidance, perception,
  cognition and motion control

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Started in 1993.

• In RoboCup 1999 there were more than 1500
  researchers actively participating within the
  RoboCup initiative.
• and the number is still increasing.

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Leagues of RoboCup

• Simulator League
• Small Robot League
• Full Set Small Robot League, which is 11 robots
  per team (F-180)
• Middle Size Robot League (F2000)
• Legged Robot Games
• Sony Legged Robot League (Sponsored by Sony)
• Humanoid League (From 2002, demonstration may
  take place before 2002)
• TeleOperation Track (to be announced)
• RoboCup Commentator Exhibition, Related
  Competitions
• (rescue, actors, etc).

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Various levels

• real robot leagues
• software agent league
• special skill competition

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History
Robocup

• Jun. 1993 - Robot J-League
• Minoru Asada(Osaka Univ), Yasuo Kuniyoshi,
  Hiroaki Kitano(SONY)
• Robot World Cup (RoboCup)
• Sep. 1993 - first public announcement
• Minour Asada, Manuela Veloso(CMU)
• 1995 - first simulator for soccer games
• Itsuki Noda(ETL)
• C version soccer server v1.0
• IJCAI-95 first public demonstration
• 1996 - Pre-RoboCup-96
• Nov. 4-8, 1996, Osaka, IROS-96
• 8 teams for simulation league, demonstration of
  middle size league

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History

• RoboCup-1997 Nagoya, Japan, IJCAI 97
• RoboCup-1998 Paris, France, MAAMAW
• AIIA, Padova, Italy, September 1998
• RoboCup-1999 Stockholm, IJCAI 99
• RoboCup Euro 2000 Amsterdam
• RoboCup-2000 Melbourne
• RoboCup Japan Open 2001 Fukuoka
• RoboCup German Open 2001 Paderborn
• RoboCup-2001 Seattle, USA

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RoboCup 97 Nagoya

• Aug 23 - 29, 1997, Nagoya, Japan
• Conjuction with IJCAI-97
• Simulator league
• 33 teams USA8, Europe8, Australia2, Japan15
• 1st AT Humboldt (Humboldt Univ., Germany)
• Small size robot league
• 4 teams USA, France, Spain, Japan
• 1st CMUnited (CMU, USA)
• Middle size robot league
• 5 teams USA, Australia, Japan
• 1st Dreamteam (USC, USA), Trakies(Osaka Univ.,
  Japan)
• Expert Robot Exhibit

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RoboCup 98 Paris

• Jul. 2-9, 1998, La Cite de Sciences Industrie,
  Paris, France
• Conjunction with ICMAS-98
• Middle size league
• 1st CS-Freiberg, Germany
• Small size league
• 1st CMUnited98 (CMU, USA)
• Simulator league
• 1st CMUnited98 (CMU, USA)
• Exhibitions
• Full set small size robot league (11 robots)
• Legged robot game
• LEGO robot football demonstration
• Webot simulator league

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Simulation League
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Simulator League

• Simplified problem
• World is two-dimensional.
• Players are points.
• Simplified control of movements
• No collisions and conflict solving.

• Simulation of soccer using artificial
  intelligence programs.
• Each team consists of eleven autonomous software
  players.
• Sophisticated rules apply in this league.

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Simulation League

• Each Team consisting of 11 programs, each
  controlling 1 of 11 simulated team members
• The game takes place on a soccer software server
• Motion, energy and distributed sensing
  capabilities are resource bounded
• Time 11 minutes
• Communication is available between players and
  strict rules are enforced e.g. offsides
• Mainly for researchers interested in complex
  multi-agent reasoning and learning issues but
  dont have the resources for building real robots

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Simulation League

• Client-server system
• Server virtual field
• Client brain, control
• Communication UDP/IP
• Open system
• Clients can be written by any programming
  systems.

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SoccerServer
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SoccerMonitor
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Architecture
Blue coach
Human arbiter
Red coach
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Example - University team
Simulator League

• Entirely written in Java.
• Is built upon mainly decision trees
• 10-15 threads running per player however most of
  the time the threads is a sleep.
• Approx. 22 000 lines of code, and increasing!
• Written by 4 persons

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Small-Size League
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Small-Size League (F-180)

• Field 2.7 m x 1.5 m

Size Area 18cm rule (fit inside in 18cm
diameter cylinder) Height 15cm (global vision),
22.5cm (otherwise)

• teams of autonomous small size robot play soccer
  game on a field equivalent to a ping-pong table.
• Each team consists of 5 robots.

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Small size league
The field is the size and color of a Ping Pong
table
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orange golf ball

• Robots move at speeds as high as 2 meters/second
• Global vision is allowed

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Robot Soccer Initiative
Vision system
Host computer
Host computer
Communication System
Communication System
Robots on the playing field
Brainless System

• Basic Architecture for Robot Soccer Systems

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Vision System

• Vision global vision system(more than 3m above
  ground)

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Small-Size League

• 20 minutes, 2 breaks

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Real Robot Small-Size League Competition
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Middle-Size League
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Middle-size Real Robot League (F-2000)

• The field is the size and color of a 3 x 3
  arrangement of Ping Pong tables (9-3 5-meter
  field)
• Each team consists of 5 robots playing with a
  Futsal-4 ball (4 players, one goal-keeper)
• Larger (50 centimeters in diameter) robots
• Global vision is not allowed.
• Each robot has its own vision system
• Goals are colored
• Field is surrounded by walls to allow for
  distributed localization through robot sensing
• Rule structure based on the official FIFA rules

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Medium size league

• Teams of autonomous mid size robots

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Real Robot Middle-Size League Competition
Ball red small soccer ball (FIFA standard size
4 or 5) Playground green playground (10m 7m
0.5m)
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Medium Size League
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Medium Size League
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Robots can be heterogenous
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Middle-Size League
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Sony Legged Robot League
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Sony Legged Robot League

• 3 robots on 1 team (including the goalkeeper).
• Robot AIBO ERS-110 (provided by Sony)

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No communication, autonomous robots, software
only. Legged Robot League. 2.8 m x 1.8 m2
players and 1 goal-keeper in a team
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Sony Legged Robot League

• Is played on a field, approx 3x2 meter
• Sony develops the robots, and provides a
  interface for the programming of the robots.

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• No Hardware modification is allowed

Playing time is 10 minutes per half, with a 10
minute break at halftime
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• Do different Robots have different personalities?
  
• Some teams have robots with very different
  capabilities.
• But it is hard to think of them as having
  personalities
• rather the robots have different playing styles.
  

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Early Sony prototype
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• Robot movements closely mirror those of animals

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• The winner is the team that scores the most
  goals.
• In the event of a tie, a sudden death penalty
  kick competition will determine the winner

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The Legged Robot League
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The Legged Robot League
If opposing teams' robots are damaged or play is
excessively rough (whether intentional or not),
penalties may be assessed to the offending robot
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System Comparisons
Merits
Demerits
Research purpose

• Vision system
• Multi-agent theory

• Cannot use local sensors
• High computing power fast sampling time

Remote-brainless system

• Low cost
• Easy to develop

• Robot system
• Multi-agent system development

Robot -based system

• Complex and expensive robots.
• Hard to build the system

• Suitable for many agents
• Can use local information

• Robot-based and vision-based systems

• Brain-on-board system

• Suitable to modularize

• Risk of inconsistent property between host
  computer and robot system

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Humanoid League
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Starting 2002, the humanoid league
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Humanoid League

• Bi-Ped League (Humanoid)
• Australia
• Japan

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RobotCup-Rescue

• RoboCup-Rescue Simulation Project is a new
  practical domain of RoboCup
• A new initiative on search and rescue for large
  scale disasters
• A generic urban disaster simulation environment
  constructed on network computers
• Heterogeneous intelligent agents such as fire
  fighters, commanders, victims, volunteers, etc.
  conduct search and rescue activities in this
  virtual disaster world
• Goal to enlighten citizens about accurate damage
  predictions, decision support in real disasters,
  and emergence of better disaster prevention
  strategies

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Robocup-Junior

• Initiative to promote educational aspects
  regarding RoboCup and advanced robotics topics
• children below 18 years old participate in the
  RoboCup-Junior games
• promotes participation by under-graduates,
  non-science graduates and general public, who are
  interested in RoboCup, but do not have the effort
  to get involved in the RoboCup World Cup games

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Competitors

• Simulation
• Japan
• Iran
• Singapore
• USA
• Russia
• Germany
• Romania
• Portugal
• Catalonia
• Italy
• England
• Finland
• Sweden
• Australia

• F-180 (Small Size)
• Australia
• Belgium
• Catalonia
• China
• Denmark
• Germany
• Japan
• Korea
• New Zealand
• Portugal
• Singapore
• USA

• F-2000 (Middle Size)
• Italy
• Australia
• Germany
• Iran
• Japan
• Portugal
• Singapore
• USA

• Sony Four Legged
• USA
• France
• Japan
• Australia
• USA
• Canada
• Germany
• Sweden
• Italy
• England

Champions 1 USA, Cornell 2 Germany 3 Singapore
Champions 1 Australia 2 France 3 USA, CMU
Champions 1 Portugal 2 Germany 3 USA, CMU
Champions 1 Germany 2 Italy 3 Iran
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Online References

• http//www.robocup.org
• http//www.robocup2000.org
• http//world.sony.com/dream/robocup/robocup2000/
• http//robomec.cs.kobe-u.ac.jp/robocup-rescue/
• http//www.artificialia.com/RoboCupJr/
• http//www.namultimedia.com/robocup/
• http//parrotfish.coral.cs.cmu.edu/robocup-small/
• http//owl.informatik.uni-ulm.de/ROBOCUP/

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Problems

• 1. Propose other robot sports in addition to
  soccer and sumo. Wrestling? Volleyball? Fencing?
  Write the rules and design a robot to play them.
  What will be technical and what will be the
  scientific challenge.
• 2. Design the rules for walking robots playing
  soccer. Design the field. How to control the
  camera. Do we need sensors and for what? Where
  are they located?