Northern Bites is Bowdoin College’s robot team.
We compete in the Standard Platform League of RoboCup (formerly the Four Legged League) where teams consisting of five Aldebaran Nao robots each play on a field of 10.4 m x 7.4 m. The robots operate fully autonomously; there is no external control by humans or computers.
We are the former World Champions on the Sony Aibo platform, and in 2008 placed third on the Aibos and in the top eight in the new Nao competition. In 2009 we placed second in the renamed Standard Platform League. In 2010 we placed in the top eight, and did so again in 2013. We reached the final 16 in every year from we began competing internationally in 2006 until 2014.
History::
In 2005, we competed @ the US Open.
In 2006, we finished 5th @ the US Open, finished 10th at RoboCup 2006.
In 2007, we finished 3rd @ the German Open, and won RoboCup 2007.
In 2008, we finished 1st @ the US Open, finished top 8 in the Nao league and finished third-place in the Aibo league at RoboCup 2007.
In 2009, we finished 2nd @ RoboCup 2009.
In 2010, we finished 2nd @ the US Open and finished in the top 8 @ RoboCup 2010.
In 2011, we finished 3rd @ the US Open and in the top 8 @ RoboCup 2011.
In 2012, we finished 3rd @ the US Open and in the top 16 @RoboCup 2012.
In 2013, we finished 2nd @ the US Open and in the top 8 @RoboCup 2013.
In 2014, we finished 3rd @ the US Open.
In 2015, we finished 2d @ the US Open.
Members::
2015
Eric Chown Faculty Advisor
Josh Imhoff Team Captain
Daniel Zeller Team Captain
Megan Maher
Nicole Morin
Dan Navarro
Franco Sasieta
Bella Tumaneng
Kote Mushegian
Cory Alini
Phil Koch
Evan Hoyt
2014
Eric Chown Faculty Advisor
Josh Imhoff Team Captain
Daniel Zeller Team Captain
Ellis Ratner
Brian Jacobel
Megan Maher
Nicole Morin
Dan Navarro
Franco Sasieta
Noah Safien
Kote Mushegian
Chuying Luo
Evan Hoyt
2013
Eric Chown Faculty Advisor
Wils Dawson Team Captain
Lizzie Mamantov Team Captain
EJ Googins
Josh Zalinger
Ben Mende
Ellis Ratner
Brian Jacobel
Josh Imhoff
Daniel Zeller
2012
Eric Chown Faculty Advisor
Octavian Neamtu Team Captain
Wils Dawson
Dani McAvoy
Lizzie Mamantov
EJ Googins
Josh Zalinger
Ben Mende
Ellis Ratner
Brian Jacobel
Noam Terrman
2011
Eric Chown Faculty Advisor
Jack Morrison Team Captain
Nathan Merritt
Yoni Ackerman
Octavian Neamtu
Wils Dawson
Dani McAvoy
Lizzie Mamantov
EJ Googins
Josh Zalinger
Benj Bellon
Ellis Ratner
2010
Eric Chown Faculty Advisor
Jack Morrison Team Co-Captain
Andrew Lawrence Team Co-Captain
Elise Krob
Octavian Neamtu
Nathan Merritt
Harrison Chapman
Wils Dawson
Josh Zalinger
EJ Googins
2009
Eric Chown Faculty Advisor
Tucker Hermans Team Captain
Jeremy Fishman Software Lead, SysAdmin
Joho Strom Administrative Lead
George Slavov
Jeremy Fishman
Nick Dunn
Andrew Lawrence
Jack Morrison
Elise Krob
2008
Eric Chown Faculty Advisor
Joho Strom Team Captain
George Slavov
Jeremy Fishman
Nick Dunn
Tucker Hermans
Andrew Lawrence
Jack Morrison
Elise Krob
2007
Eric Chown Faculty Advisor
Henry Work Team Captain
Joho Strom
Jeremy Fishman
George Slavov
Mark McGranaghan
Tucker Hermans
Nick Dunn
Jesse Butterfield
2006
Eric Chown Faculty Advisor
Henry Work Team Captain
Pat Costello
Yi Zhuang
Ferd Convery
Jesse Butterfield
Matthew Murchison
Quentin Reeve
George Slavov
Tracy Mckay
Jeremy Fishman
Joho Strom
Brendan Mortimer
2005
People::
Eric Chown Faculty Advisor
Greydon Foil Team Captain
Research::
2015
Thesis:
Imhoff, J. RoboCup goal detection without consistent lighting conditions or unique color cues.(pdf)
2013
Thesis:
Mamantov, E. Cognitive Visuo-Spatial Reasoning for Robotic Soccer Agents. (pdf)
2012
Papers:
Morrison, J., Silver, W., & Chown, E. (2012). Implementing a real-time Hough transform on a mobile robot. In Chen X., Stone P., Sucar L.E., & Van der Zan T. (eds.) RoboCup 2012; Robot Soccer World Cup XVI. Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence. Berlin: Springer.
Thesis:
Neamtu, O. Building a behavior simulator for autonomous robot soccer. (pdf)
2011
Book:
Chown, E., Ploeger, P., and Ruiz del Solar, J. (eds.) (2011). RoboCup 2010; Robot Soccer World Cup XIV. Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence. Berlin: Springer.
Thesis: Morrison, J. Implementing a real-time Hough transform on a mobile robot.(pdf)
2010
Papers:
Strom*, J., Slavov*, G, & Chown, E. (2009). Omni-Directional Walking using ZMP and Preview Control for the NAO Humanoid Robot. In RoboCup 2009: Robot Soccer World Cup XIII, Springer, Berlin. (pdf)
2009
Theses:
Strom, J. Dynamically Balanced Omnidirectional Humanoid Robot Locomotion (pdf, library)
Hermans, T. Localization in the Standard Platform League (pdf, library)
2007
2007 Application.
2006 Report.
2006
Chown, E., Foil, G., Work, H., Zhuang, Y., AiboConnect: A Simple Programming Environment for Robotics, Proceeding of the International FLAIRS Conference, AAAI Press, May 2006.
2005
Henry Work ’06, Summer Research
Robocup is a competition between soccer-playing robotic dogs. Many people have a hard time wrapping their head around this. However, Henry assures people that these things do indeed exist and are really quite impressive.
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Yi Zhuang ’08, Summer Research
As a computer science research intern, Yi spent the summer of 2005 at Bowdoin College working with Professor Eric Chown on studying and improving the vision system of the Aibos–robot dogs we program to play soccer games against other universities and colleges.
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Oliver Radwan ’08, Summer Research:: Surdna Foundation Undergraduate Fellowship
Working as a Surdna Undergraduate Research Fellow, Oliver spent the summer of 2005 at Bowdoin working with Professor Stephen Majercik on autonomous, event-based state creation and event-driven learning in an artificial agent.
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2004
Greydon Foil ’05, Honors Project
Developing an Autonomous Robot Soccer Team at an Undergraduate Institution
Robot soccer is a growing arena for the development and advancement of robotics algorithms and research. Many of the universities building robot soccer teams use large groups of graduate and undergraduate students. Bowdoin is developing a team, led by Greydon, with the goal of being competitive on an international scale despite not having any graduate students.
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