Pittsburgh's North Shore plays host today to a three-day affair billed as "the world's most Lilliputian sporting event."
The RoboCup 2008 U.S. Open will feature scores of robots ranging in size from about 20 inches tall down to "nanobots" smaller than an amoeba. Most of them will square off in soccer competition.
All events are at the Carnegie Science Center. Winners will proceed to the international competition to be held in Suzhou, China, in July.
"People are working very hard to win these competitions," said Manuela Veloso, the event's co-chair and a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University.
CMU is one of the nine universities participating in the robot teams. The school is paring with Georgetown this year. CMU won last year's competition in the "small-robot" event.
Started in 1997, RoboCup is intended to foster education and research in artificial intelligence and robotics by using soccer as a testing ground. Ultimately, the goal is to develop humanoid robots capable of beating a human World Cup champion team by 2050. Pittsburgh last hosted the U.S. competition in 2003.
On Saturday, many of the 60 or so participants were preparing their robots for their matches. That included recalibrating robots' sensors to read objects on their mini-soccer fields under light conditions that differed from those back at the lab.
"The Aibo robots should be interesting because they are more robust," said Tucker Balch, the event's co-chair, who is from the Georgia Institute of Technology. The robots, which Sony Corp. no longer makes, sport faster computers than other computers in RoboCup, he said.
The Aibos look like tiny dogs and are programmed to play soccer. "The robots are fully autonomous. Nobody is really controlling them," Veloso said.
On the smallest end, nanobots will compete in a 2-millimeter dash, as well as soccer games, which will be projected on a screen. The soccer balls have diameters of a human hair and will be used on soccer fields about the size of a grain of rice. The nanobots are manipulated by remote control by changing magnetic fields or electrical signals transmitted across a microchip arena.
Scientists hope nanobots will be instrumental in high-tech manufacturing and in medical applications, especially surgeries.
"The factory of the future won't be a block (long) but a microchip," said Craig McGray, a research associate at the U.S. Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology in Gaithersburg, Md.
RoboCup 2008 U.S. Open
Events take place at the Carnegie Science Center, North Shore.
Today:
• Sony Aibo robotic dogs compete in soccer matches in five team pairings, at 10:30 a.m., 11:30 a.m., 12:30 p.m., 2:30 p.m. and 4:30 p.m.
• Small-sized cylindrical robots play practice games at 11 a.m., 1 p.m. and 3 p.m.
• Nanobot demonstrations at 2 p.m. and 4 p.m.
• Nao humanoid demonstrations at 1:30 p.m. and 3:30 p.m.
Monday:
(Second-round competition and demonstrations. Same schedule as Sunday.)
Tuesday:
• Aibo finals at 10:30 a.m. and noon.
• Small-size game at 11 a.m.
• Nanobot demonstration at 11:30 a.m.
• Nao humanoid demonstration at 11:30 a.m.
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