AUT Cup 2012 Trophy

As an update to our previous post, we now present the trophy and the certificate we received for winning the Amir Kabir University of Technology Robotics Competition last week.

Oriental Robotics

After 2 months of struggling with Iranian Embassies in Germany and Austria for our trip to the 3rd Amirkabir University of Technology Robotic Competition, we finally got onto a flight to Teheran via Istanbul on Monday 12th. We were pretty happy to get about 3 hours of sleep during the flights, because this was about the same amount we got during the last two days due to exhaustive coding sessions. After arriving at the airport in Teheran at 5 am and a long trip to our accommodation, we were not able to rest for long since the Competition had already started.

 Although we had some minor problems with our robots and the local conditions, we managed to defeat all our opponents. After 2 days of matches and an open challange we were finally announced as the official winners of the AUTCUP 2012.

 

We were more than surprised that the closing ceremony featured a speech held by the deputy of the Iranian President for Science and Technology. As the winning team, all the team members were asked to give interviews for national and local television and radio during the ceremony, but unfortunately they did not always translated us correct.

As the whole competition ended earlier than we had expected, we had the opportunity to do some sightseeing in Teheran. The very very hospitable Iranian students from the department of mechanical engineering did not waste a minute and guided us to plenty of sights within Teheran including the Milad Tower, several Iranian Restaurants, a typical Iranian Basar, an Iranian school and many more. We are excited what our hosts plan for the next days and are looking forward to returning to Iran next year.

NaoTeam HTWK vs rUNSWift -- 1:11

This time we weren't so lucky. We've lost this game with wifi problems that we hadn't in the last games and robots that are constantly rebooting if they fall down. We used the code 1:1 that we used against B-Human and it doesn't worked out. We will definitely analyze the video of the match.

The team (back to front): Hannah Müller, Jonas Mende, Rico Tilgner, Thomas Reinhardt, Tobias Kalbitz and Samuel Eckermann not to forget Guri Thomas' personal coach

Now we will pack our stuff and go to the banquette and award ceremony. See you soon :D

NaoTeam HTWK vs B-Human - 2:2 (3:4)

Guys we can't believe it right now. We are the first team in ages (or ever?) that do a tie in a game versus B-Human (2:2). In the penalty shootout B-Human scored one more goal and we lost with a difference of one goal. So we will play for place 3 or 4 on 2pm localtime. More later we will celebrate now with a fresh hot coffee :D

NaoTeam HTWK vs Nao Devils -- 6:1

Guys we done it! We are in the semi final! We beated the vice world champion! We cant believe it right now and we`re preparing for tomorrow.

Also the Open Challenge was in the evening and we`re waiting for the results. Sorry guys we`re currently busy coding a goalie for the penalty shootout. This will be a long night. See you tomorrow at 9am local time for the semifinal against B-Human!

NaoTeam HTWK vs Portuguese Team -- 10:0

This was an awesome game! Its worked out just great. We shot the last goal one second before the game ended and won 10:0. We are proud of this result and await the quarter final game against Nao Devils at 6:40pm local time.

NaoTeam HTWK vs SPQR -- 7:1

Our game versus SPQR is over. The wifi worked during the whole game and our teamplay was superb. In the second half one of our players was delocalized and we called pushing for ourself, but it wasn't enough and we shot ourselves in the foot. If we win the next game we are in the quarter finals :D

Out next opponent will be the Portuguese Team at 3:20pm mexican time.

NaoTeam HTWK vs AUTMan -- 2:1

After the dust is settled and emotions back to normal we can write that the first game of the second group round is over and we won 2:1. It was a hard game because we found a corner case in our software. This corner case triggered a bug that let our firmware die hard. So we played the most time 2 vs 4 and showed the crowd how we win tackle after a tackle.

Also the second day of the competition is over. So far we placed first in the initial group round and we won our first game of the second group round. We are already looking forward to our next game against team SPQR tomorrow.

Result and Timetable

After we get up in the morning we realized that we forgot the most important thing: where are the results and the timetable? Take a look to see our next opponents and when we will play :)

Day four ends

Today we've played two official games and won one and the other was a draw. With the current wifi conditions we were satisfied with the results.

The new wifi routers at the field border shining like twinkling stars in the sky. The power of the wifi is significantly increased. We hope that this will provide us tomorrow with a working wifi connection.

At the end of the day we had a test game against UPennalizers and tested our new gamecontroller fallback interface: we've implemented the old button interface

Also our goalie, stand up motions and the motion editor received some love to work or work better with the new firmware.

Some side stories are that Jonas get recognized by our favorite coffee supplier and Rico acquired two new german fans :D

NaoTeam HTWK vs Austrian Kangaroos -- 2:2

This was a game where everything goes to hell. No Nao could connect to the wifi and so we played with only one robot on the field versus four in the other team. The Austrian Kangaroos played with four but completely deactivated wifi communication. After the Austrian Kangaroos scored the first goal we could level the match. In the second half our robot delocalized and we shoot oneself in the foot 2 -- 1. In the last three minutes our robot dibbled past the defenses of our opponent and scored the last goal which made it a draw.

On the plus side our new architecture demonstrated its strengths and we saw in the abyss of a faulty wifi connection. In the first game everything just worked fine. After this game Rico went to every table and collected wifi routers that can cope with this rough environment, amount of interferences and equipment connected to them. So four WRT54-GL will provide the new wifi connections for our robots.

NaoTeam HTWK vs UChile -- 10:0

We won our first game with new robots and a complete new architecture :D It was a thrilling moment to see our work of the last few month in a real game. Our next opponent will be the "Austrian Kangaroos" at 14 o'clock mexican time (21 o'clock in germany). Videos will be follow shortly.

Broken internet connection

As we arrived at the WTC we noticed that the internet was broken. After some research the solution was quite simple: For the hole building are 60 static IP addresses and a lot teams don't bring a router. So they assigned them self a address and the addresses were running out. We offered our router and switch as uplink for the teams and so helped to resolve the situation.

 

Spicy food

Since the team was still struggling with a minor firmware bug the whole morning, we decided to take a break and go out looking for some real Mexican food. Unfortunately the expected refreshment for our exhausted brains turned out to be heating our heads more than the bug did with our Nao's. 

Especially Rico and Jonas overestimated their stomachs, which seemed to be quite amusing, considering the smiles on the waiters' faces.

Our second day ends

Today we registered in the morning as participants of the robocup and set up our equipment. At the registration we instantly met many old friends of the last years. It was amazing to see these guys here. Also at our table we had many amazing conversations.

In the meantime Rico was busy to save the day. At the end everyone was happy to play with two yellow goals and a (most of the time) working wifi connection. He also did other last minute adjustments with the help of the local organizers and the amazing volunteers. We also worked hard in this time to find the cause of our wifi problems. We can't blame our Naos for the worst wifi connection ever. The 2.4Ghz frequency is quite crowded. See yourself:

Tomorrow we will have at least one training game and finish the software for our first game on wednesday. The timetable is already online and we will have the pleasure to play this year the first game in the SPL.

Spicy Mangoes and Unexpected Sightseeing

Of course even events that have been planned weeks in advance can miss some essential equipment - or spoken from another perspective: there can never be too many network cables on a single table. Fortunately, a member of the local organizational committee took Jonas and members of other teams with missing equipment to electronic stores in the very heart of Mexico City. Although this trip wasn't very long, it gave some good insights into Mexican habits and specialties: the price of network switches can differ between 10 and 100 Euros and return journeys may take about 4 times the time of onward journeys (due to usual temporal traffic congestion). On the other hand we also gained a nice view on some of the city's historical buildings, guided by a native Mexican. We also learned that fresh cut mango and a mixture of chilies and salt should not be eaten together necessarily - the old fashioned combination of Pizza and Starbucks coffee still feels just more natural for our stomachs...

German television appearance

The german television show nano ran an episode dedicated to the Robocup and our team today. It will be available on their site for the next few days. Feel free to check it out here.

Mexico City, WTC, the market and a few stories

After a long and restful nap we ate a tasteful breakfast. A few calls and half a hour later and the mess of the hotel room reservation from yesterday was finally cleaned up.

We split up today. Hannah, Samuel and Thomas searched for different supplies and stores around the world trade center and had their own little adventures. They found the market and Thomas personal coach found a new friend.

Jonas, Rico and Tobias went to the WTC and helped Rico to fulfill his responsibilities as Organizing Chair of the SPL . We measured the width of the fields and already found some flaws. We hope that they can fix these in the night.

We also learned today that the sun is not always shining in Mexico. It was quite rainy today and we had to seek more than once refuge under an umbrella.

We spent the evening with members of the B-Human team and an outstanding meal with a lot of fun together. Tomorrow the team registration will open and we will take the first opportunity to get in the WTC. Apropos WTC we are approximately 5 minutes away and it looks like this:

(We left so many stories out like Tobias got mistaken as a twin of a mexican, Rico got a 'access all areas' pass that actually was a assemblyman sign, a waiter that didn't speak english but had the Google Translate app ready and memorable small talks where we used our arms and hands because no one spoke english.)