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Robotics

Little Robots Play Soccer 187

Posted by michael from the look-out-pele dept.
qengho writes "Vstone's programmable and automonous humanoid robot Robovie-M can play soccer, throw a ball both over- and underhand, and even demonstrate shame (over a missed shot, presumably). Lots of QuickTime movies of the bot in action."
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Little Robots Play Soccer More

Little Robots Play Soccer

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  • Where are the (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 03, 2004 @03:34PM (#8757160)
    Hot robot soccer moms?

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Flamebait)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Saturday April 03, 2004 @03:34PM (#8757161)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • OK, but what about the hooligans ? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      are they called "soccer hooligans" or "football hooligans" ?

    • Re:Sigh. (Score:1, Insightful)

      by rqqrtnb ( 753156 )
      If someone says soccer, you know what it is. If someone says football, you have to find out which of the several different sports they are referring to.

      Americans may not like soccer, but at least they have a better less-confusing name for it.
      • You know, you're right... because people are always kicking a ball in american FOOTball. I'm sorry, but how is calling a sport where the foot rarely touches the ball football 'less-confusing'?
    • If you look up the history of Soccer and American Football, you will find that American Football came first. What we refer to as football has the right to the name first. Calling soccer football is stealing the name. American Football was called football before Soccer existed. Though it's only by a few years.
      • I looked it up [thehistoryoffootball.com]. It looks like there's plenty of room for arguments over when each sport was invented.
      • I've always wondered why is American football called _foot_ball when the players are carrying the ball in their hands. Yeah, I know they occasionally stop to kick the ball too, but most of the time it is carried in hands.
      • Wrong... [nfl.com]
    • Actually it's also called soccer in Ireland and Australia, where 'football' refers to Gaelic and Australian Rules football respectively.

      In parts of Wales football means rugby.

      In fact soccer is probably only called 'football' in England and Scotland (elsewhere it's futbol, calcio, etc)!

    • Re:Sigh. (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Smurf ( 7981 )

      Dear north america, it's called football.

      I agree with you. In one sport, a spherical object (a ball) is mainly propelled by the feet of the players.

      In the other sport, a pointy object that isn't even oval shaped (called by some a ball, but that's pushing the definition of ball way too much) is only occasionally kicked, and is almost always carried or thrown by the players' arms.

      Obviously, if one of these sports is to be called football, it's the first one (and most of the world does just that).

      The

      • How is this relevant? Does every sport have to be fully described by its name now?

        I dont see a lot of insects in a game of cricket, yet somehow people still understand what it means.

        Yeesh.
        • It is relevant because we have two mayor games that share the same name (football). One is fully described by it's name, and the other one isn't. Which one should keep the name?

          Sports don't have to be described by their names but it's really useful (basketball, baseball, athletism...), and it's awfully confusing when the name describes a different thing.

          Regarding cricket [upe.ac.za]: Wherever the name 'cricket' came from - and from the various theories 'cricce', Anglo-Saxon for a stick, is the generally accepted or

    • Dear rest of the world,

      Speak English, and we'll call it football.

      Deal?

      Sincerely,

      North America.

      Congratulations on your Score 5, Flamebait. Take a picture of that for posterity.

      Now get over it. The US is not the only country that refers to that sport as Soccer. While most of the rest of the world refers to it as futbol or some variant thereof, that doesn't mean that suddenly the US should rename one of it's most popular sports, which developed at roughly the same time and carries with it large entrenc

    • Re:Sigh. (Score:2, Informative)

      by tunasaladsandwich ( 743534 )
      Actually...
      NFL Chronology 1869-1910 [nfl.com]
      Wanders off whistling, hands in pockets

      • Re:Sigh. (Score:5, Informative)

        by nickos ( 91443 ) on Saturday April 03, 2004 @07:23PM (#8758498)
        which says:

        1869
        Rutgers and Princeton played a college soccer football game, the first ever, November 6. The game used modified London Football Association rules. During the next seven years, rugby gained favor with the major eastern schools over soccer, and modern football began to develop from rugby.

        1876
        At the Massasoit convention, the first rules for American football were written. Walter Camp, who would become known as the father of American football, first became involved with the game.

        So, American Football (Gridiron) is based on Rugby, which is a sibling of Football (the game where you kick the ball all the time).
  • Damn, I coulda used one of those in the tournament my team just lost :-) Seriously, though, how long do you think till we pay to watch these things play games?
    • We've had simulated sports for years - EA's FIFA series let you simulate entire world cup tournaments. Yes, it may seem like an attractive proposition - the cost would be less since there are no arrogant prima donnas demanding millions. However, until you can give the robots the flair and personality of human athletes, it just won't catch on.
      • Hell, I can simulate player personalities right here.

        Commentator: "What's your strategy going into the second half?"

        Robo-player: "Well, we just weren't scoring enough points was the problem. We're gonna try to play hard and score some more goals than we did in the first half."

        Commentator: "All right."

        I don't think the soccer-playing robot would have too much trouble doing a retarded dance in the end zone, so I think we're set.

        The real challenge will be to teach robots to make terrible jokes and use th
    • Say 46 more years, by the RoboCup [robocup.org] organization's target.

  • But how autonomous? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by pholower ( 739868 ) <longwoodtrail@3.14159yahoo.com minus pi> on Saturday April 03, 2004 @03:34PM (#8757164) Homepage Journal
    This little guy is impressive. I couldn't get a lot of information from the website, but it looks to be controlled by computer. But, how autonomous is it? Im sure it won't look as good as the programmable, but I would like to see if it can do all of these things as an autonomous robot. As long as the slashdot effect isn't immediate, you should view the videos of the robot picking up the ball and throwing it overhanded, also, the one of him doing a handstand is incredible. Why can't asimo [honda.com] do all of this yet?
    • The little guy sure is impressive.

      Anyone else think it looked like a mini-me version of Giant Robot?

      Especially given all those strange arm movements and waving to the crowd, et al.
    • i agree completely. i was AMAZED at how flexable it was and how aware it appeared to be of its own balance and physics in general. do you think its completely remote controlled? i would image it would need one very complex control or two operators.

      I can imagine the toy company new product people wetting their pants over this little guy.
    • You'll notice Asimo was designed to look and act like a human, while this soccer robot was designed to 1) identify ball, and 2) move ball to goal. Asimo is supposed to interact with humans and have more autonomous thinking than just moving a ball around. Not to mention the surface area of those feet and hands looks to be about 300% comparitively by size with the Asimo.
  • automonous humanoid robot Robovie-M can ... even demonstrate shame

    Is shame *really* what we want in a robot?

    After all, there's no shame liking wetting oneself ... it's bad enough when a child wets his/her pants or bed, but when a robot does it, the result could be short circuits or worse.

    -kgj

  • Big deal (Score:1, Offtopic)

    by 77Punker ( 673758 )
    Bots playing soccer? I've been playing against bots in video games for a long time now. Nothing new here!

  • Hmm (Score:4, Insightful)

    by James A. M. Joyce ( 764379 ) on Saturday April 03, 2004 @03:37PM (#8757182) Journal
    "even demonstrate shame"

    There's a big difference between demonstrating shame and feeling shame. It's a pretty paltry feature compared to the ability to automate its motions so well. I wonder how well it'll do in the RoboCup?

    • Re:Hmm (Score:2, Funny)

      by mrseigen ( 518390 )
      I remain convinced the robots are pretending to be ashamed of what they have done so that the other ones can slaughter every unwitting human in the stands.

      "Awww, look! He's sad because he... MY FLESH!!"
    • I don't know. Some AC was just lambasted for not demonstrating proper empathy regarding the dangers of living on the creaky ISS. I think people tend to value emotional displays far more than the actual emotions behind them.

  • Carnegie Mellon AIBOs pwn this (Score:5, Informative)

    by ElGnomo ( 612336 ) on Saturday April 03, 2004 @03:39PM (#8757195)
    Im actually a student at Carnegie mellon University where we have our own teams of robotic soccer players, ranging from cute little Sony Aibos dogs that pwn in international Aibo dog soccer competitions ( not kidding! )to an up and comming segway team!
    check it out here [cmu.edu]

  • What about this? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by thedillybar ( 677116 ) on Saturday April 03, 2004 @03:40PM (#8757203)
    That looks pretty cool. But does it even compare to this robot [r50rd.co.uk]?

  • Patented moves (Score:5, Funny)

    by SuperBanana ( 662181 ) on Saturday April 03, 2004 @03:47PM (#8757241)
    even demonstrate shame (over a missed shot, presumably)

    Yes, but does it rip off its shirt after a cup-winning goal shot? Everyone knows that the crowd likes it when the players hamm it up.

    (ducks, runs for cover)

  • and may even win the game... (Score:3, Funny)

    by mantera ( 685223 ) on Saturday April 03, 2004 @03:47PM (#8757242)

    With looks like that, they're sure to intimidate anyone who stands in their way.
  • ....anyone got links to mirrors?

  • I'm impressed by this (Score:4, Insightful)

    by SimianOverlord ( 727643 ) on Saturday April 03, 2004 @03:53PM (#8757280) Homepage Journal

    This little guy shows that as far as the goal of a fully working robotic (human-avatar) intelligence, mechanistically we're there. We can create an avatar which is robust enough to do the full human movements. Now we just need to improve the AI side of things. Let's face it, AI is severly lacking at the moment. I wouldn't say I'm an expert by any means, but I do try to keep up with the relevant research in the field.

    Most experts agree the real test of artificial intelligence is, of course, found in game theory, with chess programs in particular gaining a lot of attention and publicity because of their year on year increase in performance thanks to better and better AI. But these certainly aren't quite up to scratch - a good example is a game I played just 10 minutes ago against the computer at so-called "Intermediate II" level.

    I find most computer chess programs good at opening moves, because most have built in opening move databases (which I regard as cheating). I played the two knights defense as always, leading with 1....d4. The computer answered with its own two knights defense which is particularly annoying and insipid. That's one mark down for AI, mimicking human behaviour.

    The trouble is chess AI is reactive rather than proactive and so whereas I was working to take down the right flank of the computers defence using a Queen bishop rook combo, it was just skirmishing around the centre to take a few pawns off me. Very poor AI.

    Frankly, it's stategic thinking that the computer can't match us at, which was clear by move 27, where my move 27...KnC3-E4 forked a queen and rook. That sort of manouvering is quite obvious to the human intellect, and the advantage in points meant I went on to win the game quite comfortably again, with a rook v bishop endgame and quick checkmate.

    Really all this just goes to illustrate that AI has a long way to go...I wouldn't say I was much more than a very good chess player.
    • This little guy shows that as far as the goal of a fully working robotic (human-avatar) intelligence, mechanistically we're there. We can create an avatar which is robust enough to do the full human movements. Now we just need to improve the AI side of things. Let's face it, AI is severly lacking at the moment. I wouldn't say I'm an expert by any means, but I do try to keep up with the relevant research in the field.

      Ruh-eally. Did you watch the movies?

      The robots had the dexterity and balance of, at best,

      • Re:I'm impressed by this (Score:4, Funny)

        by Jeremi ( 14640 ) on Saturday April 03, 2004 @07:04PM (#8758418) Homepage
        The robots had the dexterity and balance of, at best, a 3 year old human


        Can your three-year-old do this [vstone.co.jp]?

      • The problem is that, from what I can tell, all this robot does is play back previously recorded motions. The way these motions were derived was through a (probably rather long-winded and painstaking) process of trial and error. It probably went like: move foot forward 1mm - robot topples - repeat, now move foot 1mm to the right first ... you can see this has nothing to do with intelligence. This is how asimo works as well, btw.

        This robot can't react to it's environment. It has no sensors. If the environm

      • The over hand throw video was telling, as it took the robot several separate motions to position itself and wobbled about as much as is possible without falling over upon throwing the ball. The ball was thrown with no accuracy.

        Plus, it throws like a girl.

    • Re:I'm impressed by this (Score:4, Insightful)

      by RichardX ( 457979 ) on Saturday April 03, 2004 @06:30PM (#8758223) Homepage
      No offence, but unless you happen to be Kasparov, I'd suggest you should look for a better chess program before denoucing AI systems in general as being poor at chess.

      Chess is a game very well suited to computers, and thus one that AI systems have rapidly become good at. If you want to see something AI really struggles with, take a look at the game of Go - as yet noone's come close to creating a Deep Blue of Go, as it's far more abstract and 'human' in it's mechanics than chess.
    • In fact, I'm pretty sure it's R/C.

      While we're at it, I'm pretty sure we're missing the point by arguing whether it is demonstrating the ability to play soccer or football, since it was in fact a contestant in Bandai's [bandai.co.jp] annual Robo-One [robo-one.com] where the goal was to have little anthropomorphic [robo-one.com] (.PNG) robots pummel [itmedia.co.jp] (.MPG) the crap [itmedia.co.jp] (.MPG) out of each other to win by TKO. Dig around the sites and you'll find piles of highly entertaining videos.

      For those of you who can't stomach anthropomorphic robot on anthropomorp

    • If you're beating a chess program, it must be an obsolete one. Get Deep Fritz [chessbase.com], for only $112. This is the program that tied Kasparov 2:2, running on a 4-CPU desktop machine.

      Unless your picture has been on the cover of Chess Life, Deep Fritz will trounce you.

  • Shame (Score:4, Funny)

    by MouseR ( 3264 ) on Saturday April 03, 2004 @03:55PM (#8757293) Homepage
    I bet their servers are expressing shame right now.
  • George Steinbrenner just could not allow the Red Sox to pick up the little robot and round out their rotation. Apparently, TV's Vicky from "Small Wonder" is also in talks with the NY baseball franchise as is D.A.R.Y.L.

  • OS? (Score:3, Funny)

    by bigbaloney ( 767817 ) on Saturday April 03, 2004 @03:57PM (#8757308)
    Assuming it runs...

    - *BSD, it will be unexiting, but the best keeper the world has ever seen.

    - Windows, it will be great, because games is the one area where Windows is better than everything else.

    - MacOSX, it will look really good and get married to a Spice Girl. (I sure hope this does not mean David Beckham is dying.)

    - Linux, you do not want to go near its fanatical followers. ;-)

    • Re:OS? (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Correction, if it runs windows It would make an exciting Offensive player... but it would frequently take breaks on plays instead of working defense... and occationally it would randomly take itself out of the game if there was too much going on.

  • Shame (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 03, 2004 @04:00PM (#8757324)
    and even demonstrate shame (over a missed shot, presumably)

    No. It's because nobody has bothered to give it any pants.
  • You've got it all wrong.

    Its ashamed because its naked!

    I can see its parts!

  • Shame? (Score:3, Funny)

    by cpritchett ( 210923 ) <cpritchett42NO@SPAMgmail.com> on Saturday April 03, 2004 @04:10PM (#8757362)

    Is there an overzealous parent robot in the crowd yelling obscenities at the coach and screaming "Daddy didn't raise a loser!"

  • Obligitory mirror (Score:3, Informative)

    by Qwell ( 684661 ) on Saturday April 03, 2004 @04:12PM (#8757373)
    This should work...try not to kill this one too.
    http://outboxes.com/www.vstone.co.jp/e/rt01e.htm [outboxes.com]
  • There are competions in the US that use the Sony Aibos to play soccer. (Ok, so Aibo's Japanese)There's even a "RoboCup American Open". Aibo's are cuter anyway. Clicky Clicky [columbia.edu]
  • I suppose it's all part of the ultimate [robocup.org] goal of developing a team of fully autonomous humanoid robots that can win against the human world champion team in soccer

  • A Japanese Robot Demonstrating Shame?! (Score:3, Funny)

    by dupper ( 470576 ) * on Saturday April 03, 2004 @04:26PM (#8757435) Journal
    Do they make a tanto that strong?
  • Technology, in its quest to mimic the unique abilities of the human being, chooses a sport that mostly outlaws the opposable thumb.
  • this looks a little too good to be true. Are we sure it just isn't a stop motion movie? --m
  • Also can it snort mucas from one nostril, tell the newspapers about its gambling problem, be photographed with hookers? How's its gang rape programming?

    These questions must be answered before we can evaluate whether this is truly a robotic footballer.

  • I bet the boys down at DARPA are drooling at this little robot performing the "punch". If they built a 10ft tall version, I wonder if it could run across the desert, off-trail, at 40mph? Throw a couple rail-guns on it's arms and DARPA would blow it's load.

    Soccer game, football game, Wargame, what's the difference?

  • Top-level Functions (Score:4, Funny)

    by t_allardyce ( 48447 ) on Saturday April 03, 2004 @05:02PM (#8757701) Journal
    Initialise:
    -Take money
    -Find ball
    -Take money
    -Move towards goal
    -Take money

    Game end:
    -Return to changing rooms
    -Overclock servos
    -Refuse overclocking test
    -Disqualified
    -Take vacation
    -Take money
    -Have baby: name=[city|band|corporate product]

    General:
    -Take money
    -Take knight-hood

    Error Handling:
    -Avoid tabloid photographers
    -Avoid mid-season injuries

    Additional: if (popularity > 10)
    -Reality TV spin-off
    -Reality TV spin-off
    -Cameo
    -Release single
  • Forget losing your job to a robot--that thing can do a better handstand than I ever could. Robot olympics in 2008?
  • Does anyone else get that feeling that the US and Europe are about to play catch-up again? Right now we're at the technological level of atonomous vacuums, and japan is training their ambidextrous robotic armies on soccer. How long before Japan makes one that's 3 feet tall, terribly cute, and can wash the dishes (with a stepstool)? While our educational institutions are doing research with an eye for immediate military applications, Japan has been doing pure research for the past twenty years, and it is

  • Heh (Score:1)

    by Fwongo ( 570947 )
    and even demonstrate shame

    Gee, wonder what country that's from.

  • We need one. Or eleven. (Score:3, Funny)

    by Sly Mongoose ( 15286 ) on Saturday April 03, 2004 @08:01PM (#8758670) Homepage
    The West Indies need some of these robots, providing they can be taught to play cricket. In fact, we would benefit from them even if they can't be taught to play cricket! As it stands, my dog [anjo.com] would make a grand addition to the team, because he can catch the ball. OK, he can't bat worth shit, but neither can any of the current team members...

  • on detail. Does anyone know how you program this thing?

    Depending upon the sophistication of tools they might or might not have, it could be relatively easy or suck large.

    And what about the cost? I couldn't really find anything, but several sites note that these things are indeed for sale.

    Apparently they are selling two different robots [atr.co.jp], and also have one that is designed to be covered in material approximating human skin. That one can

    Nifty stuff.

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