For Kasabian’s new single Underdog, they decided to do something original. After dreaming up a Guitar Hero style controller powered by soccer football players, they set out to make it happen. Using 5 wall mounted pressure sensors connected to a microcontroller, they hooked up the rig to a computer running Frets on Fire (an open source Guitar Hero clone) with a custom version of their single. After an afternoon of practice, the team was able to 5 star the song, and while this isnt the only or most complex Guitar Hero hack, we would love to have this in our house.
[Erik] and [Heni] have been using soccer as a way to improve code development techniques in robotics. Their soccer playing robots won first prize in the development competition at the 2007 RoboCup competition. They are using a teaching method they call Kinesthetic Bootstrapping to program the motions of the Bioloid robotic platform. The robots are moved by hand and those motions are recorded twenty times per second. The recorded data is then optimized in software and ready for playback in the robot.
After the break you’ll see a video of the robots playing soccer against each other. They receive commands from a computer via zig-bee with Nintendo Wii remotes as the user interface. That’s all fine and dandy, but perhaps you should try your own hand at a game. [Erik] and [Heni] developed a web interface that allows you to control the bots over the internet. We tried it out yesterday and had quite a bit of fun. We set the video stream to “Spectator” and “Jpeg Server Push” to get an image. You’ll have to wait until next week to play because the bots need someone to pick then up when they fall over. Live play is scheduled for Mondays and Wednesdays from 4-6pm GMT+2. That should give you plenty of time to program your Arduino to say “Gooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaalllllllllll!!!” when you score. Continue reading “Score Online With Robot Soccer”→
Medgadget recently published a post about a soccer competition for nanobots at RoboCup. The nanobots compete on a field that measures 1500 by 2500 micrometers with goals on the long sides jutting 500 micrometers out. Like normal soccer athletes, the nanobot teams attempt to push the ball – in this case, a silicon dioxide disc with a 50 micrometer diameter – into the goal. The nanobot competitors are monitored by an optical microscope and are remotely controlled by magnetic signals sent across the arena.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and RoboCup have already held two nanobot competitions in the last year. Nanobots made by different teams from various universities compete to test various abilities that will be critical for their practical applications in medicine, manufacturing, and other industries.
Though it is referred to as nanosoccer, the competition is actually a triathlon. The bots must sprint to the goal with the ball in one event, then maneuver the ball around stationary “defenders” and into the goal in the next event, and finally score as many goals as possible within 3 minutes. NIST and RoboCup hope to show the practical potential of nanobots with this competition and have a little fun in the process.
