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CMU robots roll to victory

By Violet Law, TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Monday, May 5, 2003
Cindy Marling is not your typical soccer mom. And Sunday's was not your typical soccer game.

As the Ohio University computer science professor watched, one of her players became stuck in a small fence and began spinning its wheels. Literally.

Marling's team, the Robocats, was one of eight competing in the small-size robot league in the first RoboCup American Open -- a regional version of the international match of autonomous soccer-playing robots -- yesterday at Carnegie Mellon's University Center in Oakland.

The small-size robots are box-shaped gadgets no larger than a honeydew melon. They played on a surface about 10 feet wide by 15 feet long.

The blend of research and sports captivated 150 participating robotics researchers representing contingents from the United States, Canada, Chile, Mexico and Puerto Rico, along with nearly 100 spectators, at the tournament finals yesterday morning.

Marling and her computer science students hope someday to construct robots capable of beating the likes of world-famous soccer stars such as Ronaldo and Diego Maradona. But that will take a lot more research.

"Right now, it's like teaching little kids playing soccer," she said. "They try to kick the ball and (they) crash into each other."

And they break down.

By yesterday, just two of Marling's seven robots were functioning. The hardware on the other five gadgets went down. And the shorthanded Robocats fell to a University of Chile team able to field the full squad of five players.

Host Carnegie Mellon University's team fared better -- the CMDragons topped Cornell University's BigRed03 to win the tournament.

The CMDragons scored eight goals in the first half and two more less than five minutes into the second half to cinch the victory.


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