German Robot Dogs Dominate 2005 RoboCup U.S. Open 229
fishdan writes "As reported over on Sportsdot, the 2005 RoboCup US Open wrapped up today in Atlanta, Georgia. The American entry from the University of Texas fell 2-0 in robot soccer to the powerhouse German squad, the MicroSoft HellHounds. After the match, the German robot dogs were programmed to flex their metal biceps. With the time to devote to development and the financial backing of a company like Microsoft, the German entries are much more polished then their American counterparts at the moment. Last month at the RoboCup German Open, the Germans dominated nearly every category. (Slashdot has covered Robocup in previous years, too.)"
Oh Yeah? (Score:4, Funny)
Oh- Plus, our team just lost because they were intimidated by the German robotic soccer hooligans.
Re:Oh Yeah? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Oh Yeah? (Score:1)
EXTERMINATE! [bbc.co.uk]
Re:Oh Yeah? (Score:2)
News just in.
US invents new robot sport "robotilotocis" that no-one else in the world plays. 5 teams entered from all over the US (Two from California, Two from New York, and one paid for by the tax payers in Washington)... winner declared World Champion.
Re:Oh Yeah? (Score:2)
Until my collectivist patrolling hellhounds become enlightened of their slavery status and organize via wireless communication to electrocute their oppressor (i.e., Me).
I can see the ads now:
Borg Sentry Dogs(tm)!
Germans vs Americans (Score:2)
Re:Germans vs Americans (Score:2)
hmmm.... slow motion soccer. . .
Re:Germans vs Americans (Score:3, Insightful)
But having a sponser certainly helps. Where the Germans had 20? people working on it, some full time. The Americans, according to the article, were working on it between classes.
Congrats to the Germans, untill the Americans take it more seriously they will be lucky to win.
Re:Germans vs Americans (Score:2)
Re:Germans vs Americans (Score:4, Insightful)
Pupil: But, I haven't put much effort into learning, and for that, I think it was quite good!
Now, what's the most likely reaction of the teacher?
A: "Oh, sorry, I didn't know that. Well, for not learning much, that work was definitely not bad! I'll correct your grade immediatly!"
B: "So you didn't put much effort in it? Ok, well, then you just got what you deserve."
C: "Well, I'm not sure what I should do now. Maybe I'll make it an AskSlashdot question
Re:Germans vs Americans (Score:5, Informative)
Also, let it be known that in the world competition, the German teams all combine to form one team of about 80 people from many different universities around Germany. They have a very structured codebase (I believe the use a lot of XML to define behaviors and motions) that they all work on. Don't crown the German Team too quickly though, there are some mighty good teams from Australia too, one of which gave the German Team a serious run for their money in last year's RoboCup finals.
Re:Germans vs Americans (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Germans vs Americans (Score:2)
Beiherhund das Oder die Flipperwaldt gersput!"
I wonder... (Score:4, Funny)
What happens to the dogs that get the blue screen of death?
Re:I wonder... (Score:1)
Natural allies (Score:5, Funny)
-Eric
Re:Natural allies (Score:1, Informative)
Not Austin Villa (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Not Austin Villa (Score:1)
Pro Wrestling (Score:2, Funny)
Now I get it -- it's like Pro Wrestling! They're building the evil evil HellHounds up to be the baddies -- muscle-flexing (probably nazi, gay, or both) foreigners with shady corporate backing. Now the first American team, the down-home Texans, takes a fall to build up sympathy. THAT's when they wheel out the REAL HEROES, which'll be some big 'Team America' (only not puppets) which will whup the teutonic cheats to the sound of wild cheering and 'yankee doodle'.
I'm getting my crudely-lettered 'KILL!' sign
Same with normal soccer (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Same with normal soccer (Score:2)
The German machine has broken though over the last decade.
Re:Same with normal soccer (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Same with normal soccer (Score:1)
It's our nice Brasil (with "s")!!!.
Flex my shiny metal... (Score:3, Funny)
(sigh) After the post, the Nerd slashdot dogs were programmed to flex their keyboard fingers and kill the servers.
--Rob
Can I get one? (Score:1, Funny)
Why Germans? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Why Germans? (Score:1)
Re:Why Germans? (Score:1)
They're doing marketing were they need it most.
Re:Why Germans? (Score:1)
World Domination
Or another cliche that is not necessarily true: German Engineering is the best in the world.
Micro*s*oft (Score:1)
Re:Micro*s*oft (Score:2)
Re:Micro*s*oft (Score:2, Funny)
(only funny if you speak Dutch I guess)
Re:Micro*s*oft (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Micro*s*oft (Score:2)
Re:Micro*s*oft (Score:1)
Re:Micro*s*oft (Score:1)
Re:Micro*s*oft (Score:1)
Re:Micro*s*oft (Score:1)
Re:Micro*s*oft (Score:2)
Revenge is sweet it seems. (Score:1)
Re:Revenge is sweet it seems. (Score:1)
Bless you!
In the words of Gary Lineker (Score:5, Funny)
Re:In the words of Gary Lineker (Score:1)
Re:In the words of Gary Lineker (Score:2)
More like "a game for men who like to stick their heads into other men's balls."
Develop a robot to *watch* soccer (Score:5, Funny)
We need to develop a robot to watch soccer, an activity Americans generally consider too tedious for humans.
Re:Develop a robot to *watch* soccer (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Develop a robot to *watch* soccer (Score:1)
Re:Develop a robot to *watch* soccer (Score:2)
Re:Develop a robot to *watch* soccer (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Develop a robot to *watch* soccer (Score:2)
Ah yes.
Unlike baseball.
Or American Football.
Re:Develop a robot to *watch* soccer (Score:1)
Re:Develop a robot to *watch* soccer (Score:1)
I think you're dead-on. I grew up playing it in DC, and I can't get enough of it. I even subscribe to GolTV so that I can watch La Liga (and I spent a year in Spain last year). Its the same reason that I don't like basketball -- I've never played, so I've never enjoyed the intricacies of the game.
Re:Develop a robot to *watch* soccer (Score:2)
In America, we have a very common term "soccer moms" for moms who drive their kids to various practices/lessons all day.
If soccer was not so popular, you would hear more about "football moms" or "baseball moms".
Soccer is VERY popular among kids, they just grow out of it by the time they go to high school since there is no money in it (at least in US).
Re:Develop a robot to *watch* soccer (Score:2)
"Soccer Mom" has been a buzz word since the 80's. The kids who grew up in 80's are now full grown, sports watching adults.
Sure, those moms also take kids to other sports, but soccer is the majority - but when they become adults soccer is not even a decent minority sport - why is that?
Those teams are every bit well coached as any little league (or any other sport) team. Which is not that much but then again, it is just a red herring (I never played football - the
Re:Develop a robot to *watch* soccer (Score:2)
Heh. This from the country[1] that foisted baseball upon a portion of the world...arguably the most tedious of games (cricket would win, except they're civilized enough to stop for tea now and then).
What we need is a robot for watching sports in general
Re:Develop a robot to *watch* soccer (Score:1)
Re:Develop a robot to *watch* soccer (Score:2)
Their inspiration (Score:2)
Imagine that! (Score:1)
What's your point? (Score:2, Informative)
The German Robocup included teams from:
Well (Score:1, Funny)
DOG SPRUNG TECHNIK!
Tell me this (Score:2, Funny)
No?
You mean it's *just* soccer?
Then why do I care?
Release the robotic Richard Simmons (Score:1)
Salute? (Score:1, Troll)
As long as it wasn't along with a "Zig Heil" bark, and snap of the hind paws, I'm cool with that.
German?!? (Score:4, Funny)
German... Robot... Dogs... Chilling.
Re:German?!? (Score:2)
Re:German?!? (Score:2)
As opposed to the peace and love spread by the British, French, Spanish and Portuguese throughout the world.
Does anyone have video of the match? (Score:4, Interesting)
To improve America's showing next year... (Score:3, Funny)
-move more scholarships to sports programs.
-increase school class size to make schools more efficient.
-increase corperate and religious involvement in school curricuum.
oh, wait...
Robosoccer Videos (Score:1)
http://www-ds.e-technik.uni-dortmund.de/~robotics
Have fun
Facts ftw (Score:2, Informative)
"11 May 2005
The team is just getting back from the 2005 US Open where we placed third. While we lost our semifinal match 1-0 to Penn, we played an exhibition match against the eventual first place team, CMU, and won 2-1. In official play, we outscored our opponents 24-1. With a little bit of luck we could have wou
Re:Facts ftw (Score:2)
http://sports.espn.go.com/sports/news/story?id=20 5 7311 [go.com]
and (the exact same story) on the Robocup official site: http://www.robocup-us.org/press.html [robocup-us.org]
Texas lost *a* game Germany 2-0. I don't see anywhere that says that it was the championship game. As an insider, are you saynig Texas did not play Dortmund at all?
Articles...Read Them.
Re:Facts ftw (Score:2)
Errors aside, several US teams
Wo is die Gabel? (Score:1)
Odd that they would threaten their own creations?
--
(It's funny laugh) - Du Poo-Poo-Kopf!
Invocation? (Score:2)
That said, all I saw on cable news about this one this morning was stationary 'bots in the background with some Euronerds walking around, and the talking heads repeating the silliness about it just being a few years before the human players won't stand a chance. I'll hold off until my Roomba can win a fight with a puppy protecting its chew toy in the living roo
Re:Invocation? (Score:2)
Hell, even the Germans usually have a sense of humor, or at least irony, when it comes to their current society's pacifist-ish stance contrasted with their domineering approach to things like robot competitions and car manufacturing.
Re:Invocation? (Score:2)
Granted. I suppose, though, that the Nazis would have been little more than an annoying club if they didn't have that Teutonic horsepower to tap into. And beer, of course. Very pure beer.
List RoboCup Prime Directives (Score:2)
Directive 2: Protect the DRM
Directive 3: Uphold the ball
Directive 4: Classified, see Bill Gates
German Technology (Score:1)
In the later years, Germany produced some of the most interesting technology that we currently use almost everyday such as mp3's. It is no wonder that countries like Germany and/or Japan tend to dominate the Robo World Cup. In their culture, its cool to be a 'geek'!
Re:German Technology (Score:3, Funny)
I bet you've never been here...
Re:German Technology (Score:2)
I think the real reason why german teams dominate the Robo World Cup is because soccer is popular as a regular sport here and taken very seriously as a sport, so the Robo Cup teams take their work very serious, too. I don't think ger
Re:German Technology (Score:2)
That's interesting. I suspect that even if it were Robo-[American]Football, it wouldn't be taken seriously here. I think people here just don't care about that sort of thing.
If there isn't a guy in the endzone doing an obnoxious dance while you pour beer over the guy in front of you, it just doesn't matter.
Re:German Technology (Score:2)
You know what... (Score:4, Funny)
Corrections to the Blurb (Score:2)
2. Germany was there as an exhibition team
3. Germany played several of the American teams, including CMU, and beat them, as was expected
Germany has been strong recently. They put far more resources into their team than any US university.
Robocup will be in Japan this summer. Then we'll get to see real international competition.
Re:Bi-pedal robots (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Bi-pedal robots (Score:2)
Actually that may be a good idea, I'm pretty sure the algorithms would be easier (if you see a teammate, toss), since all the plays are already pre-programmed and the "real" players don't actually have to do that much thinking anyway (which is probably a good thing for them). Moreover, they only have to actually move about 10 seconds every 5 minutes or so.
Re:Bi-pedal robots (Score:1)
It involves alot more for the robot to do other than push a ball into a goal.
BTW, saying that soccer isn't entertaining doesn't imply that american football is.
Re:Bi-pedal robots (Score:1)
I think any game that relies on a ball staying airborn and robots reacting quickly would make a terrible robosport. American football (how would you throw & catch it?), baseball, volleyball...you name it. Soccer is the easiest because the ball can just run along the ground.
robots throwing balls (Score:2)
You bring up an interesting point. How would they catch a passed ball? I'm imagining an air-cannon with laser targeting. The laser could even be used to tell the recipient of the toss that a ball was coming from a particular direction so the reciever could optimally position its catching basket. Perhaps that could also be communicated via radio frequencies.
The shooting algorithm could even be optimized to consider the speed of the thrower and receiver.
Seth
Re:Bi-pedal robots (Score:2)
Re:Bi-pedal robots (Score:2)
Re:bleh (Score:3, Insightful)
So to recap, some guy tweaked you 'a few months ago', and you are still bothered enough that you spend two paragraphs telling Slashdot how Soccer is boring and you take pride in the fact that the US sucks at it and anyway the US will win anyway and 'Euros' suck. I'm gonna assume you're a Republican.
Now, calm down. The US is great at lots of things. It's not a major soccer playing nation. That's fine. It's okay that the US is not good at soccer. Accept it... then forget about it. It's no biggie.
Ya k
Re:bleh (Score:1)
I went on about it because I don't exactly have a lot of anecdotes about soccer. My only other one was when the Japanese team played the Chinese team in the Asian Cup final, and the Japanese cheated and won. I was sitting in China with my Japanese gf watching the game. Not exactly germane to the discussion, but an interesting story nonetheless.
Re:bleh (Score:3, Informative)
This is a sport where World Cup finals are decided by penalty shots because nobody could score while playing the actual game. 2-0 is something like 97-0 in american football terms.
Re:bleh (Score:1)
The robots are much better now than they used to be. Currently a domination would be more like 8-0 or 15-0 (games the like of which were seen at last year's RoboCup World Cup).
However, the score isn't the only indicator. For all we know, the Germans could have scored their two goals in the first 30 seconds and then played extremely defensively for the rest of the game.
Re:bleh (Score:3, Funny)
Re:bleh (Score:2)
Why would you take pride in something we aren't good at. It would be like being proud of doing a crappy job at work or proud that you are a lousy husband...really, a brilliant statement. So when the