One Thousand Robots Face Off In a Soccer Tournament
The roboticists behind RoboCup want their team of bots to beat the World Cup champions on a level playing field by 2050
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Image: RoboCup2013
Robot domination is probably not that far away. Every day they’re getting smarter, faster and stronger. And for one set of robot designers, they have a goal that requires all three. The roboticists behind RoboCup want their team of bots to beat the World Cup champions on a level playing field by 2050.
They’re not there yet, but this year more than one thousand robots from forty countries assembled to play one another.
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The RoboCup competition is more than just a bunch of robots playing soccer. Geek.com explains:
RoboCup is about much more than just simulated sports, however. The RoboCup Rescue event sees robots showing off their rescue operation skills, while the RoboCup@Home displays all manner of robo-servant behavior. Again, there is a heavy emphasis on robots with at least a roughly humanoid silhouette, though that makes considerably more sense for a robot designed to navigate our human-tailored living spaces. Some of the robots showed up to show off whole skills, others simple principles of robot engineering like easy human-robot interaction and response to changes in environment.
To see more robots from the competition you can check out the competitions photo albums.
More from Smithsonian.com:
Robots Inspired by Biology
This Robot Dances Gangnam Style Better Than You
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