They are going for the win at the RoboCup in the port city of Incheon. This year, they are betting on two horses: the trusted, pyramid-shaped wheeled robots that have brought them the world title eight times, as well as a trio of humanoid robots that still need to learn almost everything.
Last year, Tech United played exclusively with humanoid robots for the first time. They skipped the usual RoboCup and instead competed in the World Humanoid Robot Games in China. "It turned out that a preliminary competition had been added at the last minute, because the organisation was still figuring out how this new competition could best be set up," recalls student assistant Jette Bruurs. "At that point, we had only just acquired a humanoid robot and had little experience testing and programming it. As a result, unfortunately, we didn't make it past that first round."
In China, the Eindhoven machines' internal compasses were also disrupted by a strong magnetic field from a power cable running underneath the pitch. The result was that the robots no longer knew which direction they were facing. "We learned a lot from that experience. We adapted the technology and no longer use a compass," says Bruurs, who is a student at the Department of Biomedical Engineering in her daily life.
Wheeled robots on their last legs
This year, the students of Tech United are traveling to the South Korean port city of Incheon for a new RoboCup adventure. The team hopes to repeat the legendary success of 2024, when it claimed its eighth world title on home soil in Eindhoven. That victory came with the familiar wheeled, pyramid-shaped robots from the Midsize League (MSL). These self-built veterans, with pun-heavy names such as Van Perslucht, Robodinho and De Moer (variations on famous Dutch football players' names), are absolute powerhouses thanks to their ingenious 360-degree cameras and powerful grippers that allow them to control and shoot the ball.
Although these wheeled champions will travel to Korea as well, the focus in robot football is increasingly shifting towards the Humanoid Soccer League, featuring human-like robots. These were not built specifically for football, and have many more uses. After 2027, the MSL league will even cease to exist altogether.
From world champions to toddler-style football
The switch to humanoid robots, with legs instead of wheels, takes the Eindhoven team back to square one. While the MSL robots, thanks to that 360-degree camera on top of their Zed2 depth camera, can pinpoint the ball's location at lightning speed, while the T1 Humanoids (not built by the team themselves, but supplied by Chinese company Booster Robotics) have to make do with just two cameras at the front. A bit like humans.
And anyone who has learned to walk on two legs can confirm that this particular skill takes practice. The risk of falling over is very real. This leads to chaotic scenes on the green pitch, as if teaching toddlers to play football. The robots are about 1.20 metres tall and, if they were human, would just about be tall enough to ride a roller coaster at a theme park.
Jette Bruurs: ""Right now, it really still looks like youth football. The robots are all doing the same thing and swarming after the ball like a pack of toddlers. On top of that, one of our three humanoids is currently already missing an arm."
The expectation is that the other teams will face similar 'teething problems'. "Luckily, the manufacturer of the robots is present at the event to take care of any necessary repairs," she explains. The opponents are also student teams from technical universities worldwide, 21 in total.
There's no 'I' in team, but there is AI
The Eindhoven team hopes to surprise their opponents with well-organized combination play. While the global competition appears to be focusing on individual runs, Tech United wants to translate its proven tactics of positional play and role division to the humanoids. A risky choice, because passing the ball around comes with a high risk of losing possession, but it is the way to advance robotics. While the old MSL robots rely purely on pre-programmed color recognition (Bruurs: "That's why the ball is yellow in the MSL"), the humanoid all-rounders use machine learning.
Behind the scenes, it's all about exchanging valuable data and experiences between the teams. RoboCup is not only a sporting spectacle, but above all a place where technological progress is made. The idea is that a robot learning to play football can later apply those skills in completely different areas to help humans. The tournament is therefore much broader than football alone. Robots also demonstrate their abilities in rescue services, household tasks, industry and education. Tech United focuses exclusively on the football competition this year.
Meet 'Robonaldo'
The atmosphere in the 18-member team is great, and the Eindhoven humor is still going strong. The new humanoids have been named after real-life football players, just like their wheeled predecessors Arjen Robot and Gregory van de Tandwiel. The intended star players of the humanoid team are called Motoradonna and Robonaldo, with Moertois as a goalkeeper.
The tournament kicks off on 30 June , with the grand final scheduled for 5 July. Tech United is traveling with a bare-bones squad of just three humanoids for the 3-on-3 tournament. This means there will be no substitutes available. "If one of them drops out, luckily we can use reserve players that the manufacturer has ready on-site," Bruurs laughs.
