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Watch out, David Beckham, the robots are coming for you.
Granted, England’s soccer superstar now playing in Los Angeles has about 43 years to practice and keep his game alive, but come 2050 a team of soccer-playing robots might be ready for a match. And because Beckham will be 75 years old by the time this team is up and running, it’s likely the robots will face the next generation of Beckhams.
It’s a lofty goal, to think a team of robots can beat a team of humans in a game of soccer, but it’s a challenge engineers worldwide have set for themselves. And local engineers and Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne students and faculty are participating in a similar challenge, only with medium-size robots playing other medium-size robots within five years.
“It’s a rather ambitious timetable we’ve set up, because we’ve started with nothing,” said Robert Sedlmeyer, associate professor of computer science.
IPFW received a grant for nearly $10,000 from Raytheon, an engineering firm that specializes in defense and homeland security systems, and $5,000 in other contributions to create a RoboCup soccer team.
RoboCup is an international project that gives engineers a fun problem to solve – building a soccer-playing robot. The project also teaches fundamentals of engineering that could be applied to more socially significant concepts.
IPFW has a team of four faculty members, eight students and three engineers from Raytheon working to develop the computer software and engineering tools to construct the six-member robot soccer team. The goal is to have the team up and running by 2012 so IPFW can qualify for the RoboCup competition.
The group has already built one robot, which sits about one foot off the ground and is on wheels. The robot’s flat top holds a camera that tracks the ball.
“It doesn’t look like much, but it took a lot to get here,” Sedlmeyer said.
The team is working to develop a leg that will attach and kick the ball. Currently, the robot can recognize only an orange basketball. Recognizing a soccer ball with black and white colors is too complex for the robot, but the computer engineers are writing a more advanced program.
Landry Nzudic, a senior electrical and computer engineering major, dribbled the basketball with his feet Monday as the robot followed it.
It looks like a big toy, Nzudic said, but students should relish the opportunity of getting to work on such a complex machine so early in their careers.
The point of the local project is not to create the robotic World Cup champions, but to teach students at all points of their careers the fundamentals of engineering.
The project allows freshmen to develop basic engineering skills, seniors to refine the concepts they’ve learned and professional engineers gain experience as teachers.
“You barely realize you’re learning how to do things because you’re having so much fun,” said John Bodenschatz, engineer with Raytheon who is also working on his master’s degree at IPFW.
The ultimate goal is for the students to learn these skills on the fun project so they can apply them toward real robotic concepts in the works, like using the machines for rescue missions or to help elderly or invalid people in their homes, the engineers said.
ksoderlund@jg.net
