Category Archives: German Open 2007

Northern Bites Finishes Third at the German Open 2007

Northern Bites: 8 Cerebus: 3

Wasn’t by far our best game, but wasn’t bad either. We got some good goals and were aided by a sometimes crashing opponent goalie. And our goalie looked pretty solid the whole game too, making two big saves, but missing a few hard shots from outside the box. We’re really amped to get back in the lab and start making things better for Atlanta. Our color table looked crappy in the second half — we weren’t grabbing at all.

As Tucker just said, he liked how the GermanTeam came over and said ‘so you fixed your goalie?’. That’s sweet.

Roll, nBites!

First ever Northern Bites doubled digit score at competition!!!!11ONE

Northern Bites: 12 Harzer Rollers: 2

Changes from last night’s game included an updated color table, some behavioral improvements to ball chasing, and the removal of a significant bug that had been lingering in the vision system for over a year. With the vision bug corrected, localization for all players was improved and the keeper was staying closer to the center of the goal. Unfortunately he was still having problems and let in one goal after trying to clear it and then not finding the ball sitting next to him.

We entered half time with a lead of 4 to 1. After a couple goals by us in the second half, our goalie began to have troubles moving his leg and could not position himself back in the goal. At this point the Rollers had a strong head kick and a goal was scored. We called a time out to asses the problem, but could not use any of our back up robots, since we have not been able to get any of our M3 Aibo’s to work with the competition wireless LAN.

We replaced the keeper’s stick so that he would stand in goal and do nothing. This defense was effective in that our offense began to dominate, proving the old adage true that the best defense is an intimidating figure standing still and doing nothing. Maybe it’s a good offense. Even though we had a few problems with wireless lag the robots began shooting on goal with much more authority.

We play the NuBots in the semis at 6:00. We played three halves against them last night being scored on at least eight times (Henry says eleven) and scoring two goals (one while the NuBots had taken a player of the field). At this point we don’t have any proof of the goal against the NuBots, but we will on the video after tonight’s game when we beat them soundly.

We’ll post again after the semi’s.

Goalies Should Stop Goals

The Northern Bites pool play at the German Open got off to a disapointing start. In the first game of pool play for pool B we were defeated 8 – 0 by the German Team. Although the goal differential was quite high, play, particularly in the second half, was even at many times. The German team’s largest advantage came from the goalkeepers on the field. Our goalie was having a difficult time localizing and was positioning poorly in the goal; in opposition, the German Team goalie played very well and blocked multiple Northern Bites shots. Our second game will be this afternoon and we hope for a much better result.

Unrolling in Hanover

We arrived safely, we arrived tired, we arrived in a country were beer is king and robots are more king. We are embedded in the very center of sprawling industrial fair in Hanover. We are now in our second day of testing and our players are looking strong. Last night in a test scrimmage against the German Team and ended after one half with a tie of 1-1. Setup continues today with scheduled test matches. Our team played well against Cerberus in our first test match of the day, even though wireless was spotty and are players’ decision making was not at the best level. We have another test scrimmage this afternoon and hope to see our dogs once again in the best of states. Pool play begins tomorrow and we will make sure to post all information about our triumphs and place many sad emoticons around information of our losses.