Robocup impressions - Robot Dance

At Robocup there are several categories to compete in. We exclusively participate in robot soccer. However, we wanted to give you some impressions from Robot Dance as well.

Nao-Team HTWK vs. B-Human - 0:4

Our longstanding competitors of B-Human were the last challengers for the outdoor group phase at Robocup World Championship 2016. The match proceeded similarly to the former match against Nao Devils. A strong advantage in robot speed enabled B-Human to score four goals. Our outdoor matches in this years competition are done for now. In the next matches the indoor fields are used. Giving us the chance to bring our strength into play.

Nao-Team HTWK vs. Nao Devils - 0:2

Our second game of the competition had a similar flow to the first one. Both teams struggled with the new ground texture of the new fields. The midday heat in the glass hall provided an additional challenge for both teams. However, in the end robots and humans persevered and fought a good match. Nao Devils was able to decide the match for themselves eventually with their quite impressive walking speed. We are now looking forward to our last game of the day against the team B-Human.

Nao-Team HTWK vs. TJArk - 0:1

TJArk from People's Republic of China was our first opponent this year during Robocup World Championship. Walking on the new competition field was a challenge for both teams as this years ground texture is harder to handle compared to the last years. In the end TJArk demonstrated a more stable walking style and managed to win the very close game with a score of 1:0.

Below we provide a time lapse of the game so you can have a look at the new ground texture yourself.

Nao-Team HTWK Members were awarded the Jakob-Leupold-Medal by HTWK Leizpig

HTWK Leipzig awarded the Jakob-Leupold-Medal to Rico Tilgner and Thomas Reinhardt for their long time contributions and international representation of our university. They founded the Nao-Team HTWK in 2009 with the support of Prof. Dr. rer. nat. Klaus Bastian and Prof. Dr. rer. nat. habil. Karl-Udo Jahn. As core members of the team they are highly motivated individuals that continue to define our team spirit and shape many current team members.

The team thanks the HTWK for their recognition and support.

RoboCup 2016 Livestream

Due to the great popularity of the last years we decided to provide a livestream of Robocup 2016. The stream team just finished the setup and the countdown for the first official game hast started. If you are unable to visit us here you can view the games live at robocup-leipzig.de

Group shot

Today is the last setup day and we are preparing for the first competitions. This includes the qualifiers for the drop-in challenge. We passed the qualifiers a few hours ago and celebrated the occasion with a group picture.

Drop-In

Good morning everyone.

This day is dedicated to the so called "Drop-In" challenges.

During Drop-In the playing robots are composed of members of multiple teams. The idea is to explore the ability of cooperation beyond a single team and to support "weaker" teams.

To participate in the Drop-In, each team has to implement a standard "language" to be able to communicate with robots of other teams.

Uniquely Broken

Although our first preparation day was very funny and productive, we have to grief about one of our fallen ... Mr. Burns' left leg is 'uniquely broken' and can't be repaired during the competition.

Timetable

The finalized Timetable is now available at www.tzi.de Timetable. 
To summarize, we are playing 3 times on Thursday (30.06.2016):

• 11:15 versus TJArk
• 14:15 versus Nao Devils
• 15:45 versus B-Human 

We wish everyone a good start and are both eager to see what progress the other teams have made and how our improvements will impact the competition.

Setup Robocup 2016

After some days in our lab we successfully migrated to the competition venue to prepare even further and most importantly get all of our robots repaired.

This year we will have an outdoor competition for the first time, which means we will play in the glass hall, resulting in varying lighting conditions. Another feature of the outdoor competition is the artificial turf. It took some time to adapt our walking accordingly, but we're confident to do well. Unfortunately the glass hall won't be open for visitors, so our matches can only be seen once we join the main competition on Friday afternoon. However, there will be a livestream and we will upload videos on our youtube channel as usual.

Preview RoboCup 2016

Hey hey hey everyone!! :D We are still alive, perfoming hard in our lab!! Special Thanks to Martin Blum, he created an awesome promo video! :) With this being said, here is a little preview for the upcoming RoboCup Leipzig event :) Have fun!!

Bembelcup is over, we won!

The Bembelcup is over and we finished first with 12:0 goals and 12 points in 4 matches.

We'll use the day tomorrow for some testing, but now it's time for drinks!

Bembelcup

We finished first at this years Bembelcup after winning all 3 games so far. We made some major adjustment regarding our vision which enabled us to test other new cool stuff such as improvements to the strategy.

Everything is really cool like expected and we look forward to spend some time roaming around the campus after our final match.

Night of Science

Today we traveled to Frankfurt for the Night of Science, an awesome annual event at the university. We have a friendly tournament with our hosts the Bembelbots as well as the team Nao-Devils from Dortmund.

We won our first match 2:0 against the Bembelbots and look forward to the next rounds and some Äppler (applewine), a popular local beverage.