The University of Pennsylvania is hosting the US Open RoboCup from the 8th to the 10th of May 2018. RoboCup is an international robotics competition aimed to further research in robotics and artificial intelligence by offering competitions to promote advancements. The Standard Platform League, which is the RoboCup competition of this event, is a robot soccer league where all of the teams compete with the same set of fully autonomous robots.

The official goal of the RoboCup Soccer Competition is:

By the middle of the 21st century, a team of fully autonomous humanoid robot soccer players shall win a soccer game, complying with the official rules of FIFA, against the winner of the most recent World Cup.

This goal is worked towards by introducing a rule change each year to make the robot soccer more like the soccer of humans. As of right now, the field is an artificial turf with white goals and field lines and a white and black ball. Free-Kicks are also being added into play in 2018 in order to offer the robots more space for creativity when it comes to orchestrating attacks.

The GRASP lab of The University of Pennsylvania has participated in Robocup since 1999. Penn Professor, and Director of the GRASP lab, Dr. Daniel Lee was elected to serve on the RoboCup board of trustees in 2013 and has served on the board ever since. Penn is also the home of the five time RoboCup Humanoid League champion team.

Participating teams this year

UChile UChileRT withdrew from US Open. Robotics Team (UChileRT) is a joint Robocup team from the Advanced Mining Technology Center (AMTC) and the Department of Electrical Engineering of the Universidad de Chile. The team was established in 2002 and participated in the SPL league since 2003 under the name UChile1. Since restructuring in 2012 UChile has placed in the top twelve teams in Robocup 2013 and finished in fourth place in Robocups 2014, 2015 and 2016.
Austin Villa is an Robocup team from the University Of Texas at Austin. They compete in both the SPL league and have won the RoboCup 3D simulation league in each of the past 4 years. Their SPL team won the championship in 2012 and recently finished in 2nd place back in 2016
The UPennalizers consists of graduate and undergraduate students from the University of Pennsylvania and is led by Dr.Daniel Lee of the GRASP Lab. Our team participated in the RoboCup international competitions from 1999 through 2006 using Aibo robots, and won the 2nd place in 2003. Since 2009, we returned to the Standard Platform League and made to the quarterfinals in 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2016. In U.S, we participated in the RoboCup U.S Open every year and won the championships in 2013 and 2014. The lab also had a 5-year Championship team in the RoboCup Humanoid League.

Game Schedule and Results

Participants: Austin Villa and UPennalizers

 Date Time Event Results
May 8 8pm Referee overview
May 8 9pm Game 1, Practice scrimmage
May 9 2pm Game 2, Penalty kicks afterwards 1-0 and 2-1 (UT vs. Penn)
May 9 7pm Game 3 2-0 (UT vs. Penn)
May 10 10am Game 4, Penalty kicks afterwards 3-0 and 1-0 (UT vs. Penn)

Arch Building

Game will be held at Arch 208

Built in 1927 and restored in 2014, UPenn’s Arch building is the home to most of Penn’s multicultural centers and the current home to the Center for Undergraduate Research and Fellowships. It also houses a restaurant with Tortas Frontera by Rick Bayless present in the ARCH Cafe.

    3601 Locust Walk Philadelphia, PA 19104
    It is easiest to park along Walnut near 36th and pay at the nearest kiosk with cash or credit card if you are parking for a few hours. (Kiosk spots are also along Chestnut, 38th, etc.).

    There is a garage at the N.E. corner 38th & Walnut Sts.
    Hourly Parking: Sunday - Saturday
    6:00 a.m. - 11:00 p.m.
    Credit Card only at all times $11 for the first hour; $2 each additional hour, $30 maximum. Rate applies from 6:30 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. $18 before 9:00 a.m., depart by 6:00 p.m.; after 5:00 p.m., depart by 11:00 p.m.
    Information Desk: (215) 746-6067

Accomodation

Below is a list of Accommodations on Penn’s Campus:

Contacts

  • Dr. Daniel Lee and Xiang Deng, {ddlee, dxiang} at seas dot upenn dot edu, UPennalizers