RoboCup: Robo Humanoids May Dominate Sports Scene Soon!

Move over Messi, your robo humanoid counterpart is here. When the ground is set and the game is on, the robots will ensure they don’t flout rules, don’t bite each other on the game and least of all, no dripping sweat or shouting curses at each other. Soon, this will be a pure form of sports entertainment. All those who love the dark side of sports may be disappointed, but when it comes to playing between Robot teams, sports is as sportive as it can get.

Just about a decade ago when the robots were at a very basic stage, and drones were a figment of imagination and driverless cars, somewhat a fantastic flight of fantasy, the world probably didn’t think they would be sitting at a doorstep sooner than later. Today, whatever seemed like a distant image is a reality and a matter of serious business interest – whether it is a drone or a driverless car, or robots.

The football world cup recently held in Brazil may have created a million headlines world over. But, what really got the tech world excited happened a little later after the men lifted the cup. Germay put up a tough and interesting fight to become the FIFA world champion. But, the country tasted bitter defeat a little later, against Australia. The German robots were trounced by Aussie robots at the Robocup 2014 (Robot Soccer World Cup), held in Brazil recently.

The University of NSW robot football team called rUNSWift beat best of the German robots with 5-1 to become world champions. The rUNSWift team was as ruthless as a real player could be, and went chasing goals after goals to beat their opponents with grit and super programming intelligence.

All through the tournament, they played against 20 teams, racking up a whopping 37 goals in the final match against their opponents, with only one goal conceded!

The game had an interesting start though. The Nao- Team HTWK from Leipzig University of Applied Sciences (Germany) took early possession of the field. However, with some super moments that gave some hair rising turn to the game, rUNSWift soon laid claim over the field and galvanised into action, ensuring every goal that happened on the field was made by Australian robots.

Just like their emotion-filled humans and much unlike them too, the untiring UNSW team struck back with an early goal and maintained constant pressure on the German team to defeat them at the end.

Those moments wrote a significant history about RoboCup and the future of how games are going to be played. When RoboCup was first held in 1997, the clumsy display of robots created by then had the organisers setting a date to about 2050 when a real game between robots would be a reality. The time came sooner than later. Just as the world watches technology taking center stage everywhere, we are sure the day is not far when robot game will claim more audience than human teams!