RoboCup attracts best of the robotics, AI worlds

If you've ever wanted to see robots play soccer, you'll get the chance next week as RoboCup, the international robotics competition and symposium, comes to Tech. Most events will be held in the CRC, and Tech students can use their Buzzcards to get in free.

Robots built by teams from 33 countries will participate in the event, which has the ultimate goal of being able to field a soccer team in 2050 that can beat the world's best human players.

Since 1997, RoboCup has been an annual conference and competition centered around developing robotics and the field of artificial intelligence, using the soccer tournaments and other competitions as an impetus for greater research in the field. Tech was chosen in April of 2006 to be this year's host, making it the first time since 2001 (Seattle) and only the second time ever that RoboCup will be located in the United States.

"It's a little bit like the Olympics. A group puts a proposal up and they compete with other proposers, and the board of trustees of RoboCup decides a few years in advance where it's going to be. I've been involved in RoboCup for about 10 years now and I wanted to bring it here to show off Tech to the rest of the robotics world, so we put in a bid a few years ago to have it here," said Tucker Balch, an associate professor in the College of Computing and general chair of this year's RoboCup.

Beginning on July 2 and lasting through July 10, the first events are junior competitions for elementary and high school students, with the senior competitions beginning in the middle of the week. It all caps off with the RoboCup Symposium, a robotics research conference, on July 9-10.

The competitions themselves fall into several leagues. The soccer league consists of four-legged, humanoid, middle size and small size divisions, as well as a soccer simulation and a junior league. In each league, teams develop a team of autonomous soccer playing robots, meaning they not only move on their own but form strategy on their own. All of these competitions will be held in the fourth and fifth floors of the CRC, which will otherwise be closed during RoboCup.

In the rescue league, which will also be located in the CRC, teams develop a robot which explores a disaster site and identifies the locations of victims, creating a map for rescuers and giving them enough information to go in and perform rescues.

Other leagues include RoboCup@Home, where teams develop autonomous robots with applications to everyday life, and the Nanogram league, which is a microscopic-scale robotics agility competition. These will be located in the Tech Square Research Building.

Additionally, there are soccer, rescue and dance competitions in the junior league. The junior soccer matches will be held in the CRC, while the junior rescue and dance competitions will be held in the Student Center.

Tech will be represented by a number of entries in the competitions. One of them is a team of five robots developed by the RoboJackets, a student organization, for the small size soccer league. The RoboJackets regularly compete in other robotics competitions but were only able this spring to secure the funding needed to put together an entry for this year's RoboCup.

As a result of getting a late start and thus not being able to demonstrate a working team in the spring, they will have to pass the qualifying round where the team will have to score against stationary defenders before they are able to compete against other teams.

"We're pretty optimistic. As a first year team there are other teams that start out with more funding that we do and they only produce three robots that barely move, so we're quite happy with the results we've gotten as a first year team," said Roman Shtylman, a third year CS major.

Another Tech entry will be in the rescue league, where a group of approximately 15 current and former graduate students developed a tank-like rescue robot designed to use infrared scanning and a series of cameras to help an operator find victims in a building during an emergency.

"This is a huge competition, and I'm thrilled that I'm going to have a chance to enter a robot, especially one that I had a large hand in building and designing," said Ben Axelrod, who graduated in May with a master's degree in computer science but has stayed around to continue to work on the robot.

To take advantage of the robotics community's temporary presence in Atlanta, the Robotics: Science and Systems conference was also scheduled to coincide with RoboCup. It took place from June 27 through July 29 at the Fox Theatre, with workshops on July 30 taking place in the Klaus Building.

Balch said the event will bring in total about 1,700 participants to campus, about 1,000 of whom will be staying in on-campus housing. West campus dorms will be used to house senior league participants, and east campus dorms will be used for those in the junior league.

"I would suggest that the best time to go would be late in the week, Thursday or Friday, because the robots get better and better as the teams work on them and improve them, and it's going to be less crowded than on the weekend when the finals are going to be," Balch said.

Of course, with all the activity and the increased visitor presence, the cost will be will be some temporary inconveniences for students and others on campus.

"Ferst Drive, from the Student Center to the West Campus dorms, is going to be a bad place to drive, so try to avoid that. The Student Center's going to be jammed with high school students also, so maybe eat lunch somewhere else," Balch said.

"We're very grateful to the students for letting us use the CRC. I'm a Tech undergrad and Ph.D, and the whole reason we're doing this is to show off Tech," Balch said.

"Usually it's at a big convention center or something, and I really wanted to get people on our campus. I want people to know how great Georgia Tech is and to think about coming here," Balch said.

More information about the event, including a complete schedule of all of the competitions and selected videos of the robots in action, is available at the RoboCup 2007 web site, www.robocup-us.org

RoboCup Schedule of Events

Tuesday, July 3

10:00 a.m.

RoboCup opening ceremony, CRC

11:00 a.m.

VIP reception, H2O Café, CRC

July 3-July 6

Preliminary competitions, various locations

Friday, July 6

7:00 a.m.-8:00 p.m.

Junior rescue and dance finals, Student Center

Junior soccer finals, CRC

Saturday, July 7

9:00 a.m.-6:00 p.m.

Senior soccer and rescue finals, CRC

Nanogram and simulation finals, TSRB

Sunday, July 8

9:00 a.m.

RoboCup@Space demonstrations, CRC

9:00 a.m.-4:00 p.m.

Senior soccer and rescue finals, CRC

Simulation and nanogram finals, TSRB

4:30 p.m.

Closing ceremony, CRC

Monday, July 9

9:00 a.m.- 6:00 p.m.

RoboCup Symposium, Fox Theater

Evening,

Symposium poster session, TSRB

Tuesday, July 10

9:00 a.m.- 6:00 p.m.

RoboCup Symposium, Fox Theater