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IMG_1249, originally uploaded by northern_bites.

We’ve started opening aibos to fix their necks. Our first patient was Raph, though upon inspection, he didn’t need to be fixed. (There appears to be some natural ‘play’ in the neck joint emanating from the gear box). Then, we opened up Merry, who had the worst neck, and glued him back. He’s running fine now, and his neck seems better, but the gear-box play is still there.

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Nao’s default position, originally uploaded by northern_bites.

For the past month and a half we’ve been playing around with the Webots simulation of the new Standard Platform robot, the Aldebaran Nao. We’ve scripted a standup routine, gotten python behaviors running, and started working really hard on developing a walk engine.

So far, we’ve been working on a robust implementation of inverse kinematics, which means asking an arm or leg to go to a point in x,y,z space, and then getting the IK system to spit out the joint angles necessary to get there. This is hard, because for any given destination, there can be many combinations of joint angles to get there.

Above is a screen shot of the new simulator, and the nao prototype model.

After months of waiting, the Robocup trustees have released the list of accepted teams. We are extremely excited, and honored to be part of this new league!

The extra delay in the decision was probably because they chose to include an extra 4 teams in the new league, bringing the grand total to 16. Other teams admitted from the US include a team from UT Austin, and a joint Georgia Tech / CMU team.

In the letter to the applicant teams, the RoboCup trustees repeated their desire to increase the number of teams which are the result of cooperation between multiple institutions. They also mentioned a desire to include a mix of new and very experienced teams, and a more geographicaly diverse set of teams.

Here is the list of accepted teams, (in alphabetical order by country):

– runSWIFT, Australia
– NuBots, Australia
– UChile, Chile,
– sharPKUngfu, China
– WrightEagle, China
– BreDoBrothers, Germany
– Humboldt, Germany
– RWTH-TUG-UTC, Germany/Austria/South Africa
– Kouretes, Greece
– SPQR, Italy
– EagleKnights, Mexico
– TeamChaos, Spain
– Cerberus, Turkey
– CMU/GeorgiaTech, USA
– NorthernBites, USA
– UAustinVilla, USA

More analysis to come soon.

On Saturday, we brought our field to Morrel Lounge in Smith Union for a midday scrimmage for the parents. Chown talked (unfortunately, without a mic) about our success as a team, and introduced the members of the team. A crowd of 150-200 then watched our team from Atlanta decimate our team from Hannover 12-1 in two full halves. Though some small children wearing orange-colored pastels provided an unexpected hiccup for our vision calibration, the remainder of the scrimmage went well.
The Atlanta team started in blue, defending against Hannover, who had a scoreless first half. During half-time, one of the spectators suggested we switch the goalie code for each team to give Hannover a better chance. Though the Hannover’s new all-star goalie couldn’t communicate with his teammates, he made some clutch saves in the second half, holding Atlanta to a 12-1 final lead over Hannover.

Both during half-time, and after the game, the crowd was very enthusiastic, and asked many questions. One father even came up to me later in the day, and wondered what his interested teenage son should do in high school to be able to do something like RoboCup in College. On the whole, the parents were immensely entertained, and for the many students who attended, it was an experience to finally see their own robot-dog team in action.
For us, it was a chance to get better at preparing for competition, including a chance for some to learn more about color-calibration. Though the match was a success from an event point of view, it certainly showed us that we have a lot of work to do in the next year to ensure that the Northern Bites remain unbeatable. Look for pictures and a video to be posted soon.

We just finished our one-half-only scrimmage in Lancaster for the trustees. Our current team (in blue) beat our old team from hannover (in red) 7-0 in 9 minutes of play. Though our vision calibration probably favored the atlanta team, and shooting on the yellow goal, the game was engaging to watch. The atlanta team moved the ball well (as is to be expected), and converted on every attack. The Trustees were all very interested, and asked lots of questions which was good. Some of them even asked questions beyond the usual, getting at important issues like why we did so well in atlanta, and how we manage to be so cool (jk). Before the scrimmage began, Professor Chown introduced all the team members, and talked a bit about our team philosophy, and our journey over the past several years.
Looking ahead two weeks to our big Parents Weekend scrimmage on the 27th, we seem to be pretty set. Obviously we will want to have a slightly better tuned color table, but overall, seems like we have reduced the huge ordeal of having a scrimmage to only a couple of hours of prep time (last night, we were out of the venue in only 4 hours, including flield and light setup and calibration).