A growing number of universities and schools are pursuing one co-curricular activity, participation in robot design competitions. One out of many competitions is RoboCup. It is a versatile, multi-level worldwide famous soccer robot competition.
RoboCup is an international research and education initiative. It is an attempt to foster AI and intelligent robotics research by providing a standard problem where wide range of technologies can be integrated and examined, as well as being used for integrated project-oriented education.
In order for a robot team to actually perform a soccer game, various technologies must be incorporated including: design principles, multi-agent collaboration, real-time reasoning, and sensor-fusion. RoboCup is a task for a team of multiple robots under a dynamic environment. Additional activities of RoboCup include competitions, conferences, and challenge programs. The RoboCup World Championship and Conferences is the central pillar of RoboCup activity, where researchers can get together and evaluate research progress.
Only 24 teams out of 40 were qualified for Humanoid KSL league from all over the world. Bar-Ilan team RoBIU from Faculty of Engineering qualified and came among the best eight teams worldwide. The team made research of various subjects including agents` collaboration, improvement of gait and walking algorithms, vision filters and algorithms, goalie and forward behaviors, real time programming, communication and more.
RoboCup has a subdivision called RoboCupJunior intended for school students. It is a project oriented educational initiative. It provides a scaffold learning environment, in which students can develop more sophisticated solutions as they grow and expand their knowledge.
