Programme of Events

With Euro 2012 just about to start, NUI Maynooth will provide a public display of Ireland’s Robot Soccer team, RoboEireann, who were runners up at the recent RoboCup German Open, an annual European robot soccer competition. Video footage of RoboEireann at the event is available to view at http://youtu.be/5Ut0nBh4piY

Robot soccer is part of RoboCup, an international research initiative aimed at advancing the state of the art in intelligent autonomous robotics. RoboEireann competes in the Standard Platform League where all teams use identical humanoid robot hardware but must develop software that enables the robots to understand their surroundings, make decisions, and coordinate their behaviour without human intervention or remote control.

For the public display, RoboEireann team members, comprising students and staff from the Department of Electronic Engineering and Department of Computer Science at NUI Maynooth, will demonstrate robot soccer in action, explain the challenges involved, and answer any questions.

The event is free to attend and anybody who has an interest in robotics, engineering, computing, or even just soccer might find it interesting. Just like regular soccer, there are referees, fouls, sendings off and penalties - so games can be eventful. While the game isn’t played at the speed of human soccer, it is fascinating to watch - particularly when you come to appreciate the huge amount of work and expertise that has gone into each move the robots make.