Category Archives: 2023

RoboCup Crailsheim: ER-Force vs. luhbots

Posted on by

Our weekend was originally supposed to start with a game against the French team NAMeC, but it seems that the majority of their members have been caught in a strike when they travelled from Bordeaux, which is why only very few members and robots are currently present. Therefore, after consultation with luhbots, we offered to swap the game ER-Force vs. NAMeC with the game ER-Force vs. luhbots that was originally planned for Sunday.

Hence, we are now playing our first game against the Hanoverian team luhbots. Despite the switch, the game will still be played on only one half of the field, as both luhbots and NAMeC are Division B teams.

In contrast to Division A, in which our team plays, Division B is an entry-level league for new teams. Accordingly, the playing field is smaller and only 6 robots per team play a game.

In addition, both teams agree to play without ball placement, i.e. the ball is not automatically placed by robots if it goes out of bounds, but instead by the human referee. This rule is mandatory for games between Division A teams, but can be waived in the case of Division B games.

After the live commentary by ER-Force is ready, we can finally start!

Something new happens shortly after the kick-off: with little sensitivity, the luhbots’ robots severely damaged a ball through excessive dribbling, so that it had to be pulled out of circulation. At least their dribbler seems strong enough. Luckily we have enough spare balls with us so that after a lot of laughter we can continue straight away.

Our new prototype was able to play for the first time (see video, number 15). It even scored a goal right away, but the ball was too fast and the goal wasn’t counted.

Nevertheless, we were able to win the game 4:0. Overall, the game was relatively smooth and enjoyable to watch. For such a new team, the game was a really good effort.

Unfortunately, we are currently well behind schedule due to technical problems. According to the current status, the next game RoboTeam Twente vs. luhbots will take place at 3:00 p.m.

RoboCup Crailsheim: Setup-Day

Posted on by

Today is the day. Our tournament in Crailsheim starts. Our team has been in the Karlsberghalle since 09:00 this morning and is hard at work setting up the field.

The chipboards are laid out, the carpet is rolled out and the cameras are hanging from the ceiling at a height of 6m. The vision is adjusted and calibrated with great sensitivity. After several strips of tape, all the tables are connected to the LAN and the end of field construction is in sight.

At the same time, the teams prepare the robots for the tournament. To do this, the color patterns that are required to recognize the robots in the camera system must be cut to size and attached to the robots. In addition, the last robots are still being screwed together and all the others are being serviced.

We are looking forward to an exciting test tournament!

Tomorrow the tournament is scheduled to start at 09:00. The first game will be played between TIGERs Mannheim and RoboTeam Twente. Meanwhile, our first game is expected to start at 11 a.m. against the new French team NAMEC.

RoboCup Crailsheim

Posted on by

The time has come on the first weekend in April: The RoboCup Crailsheim will take place in the Karlsberghalle in Crailsheim! We are looking forward to presenting our self-made robots to you and to playing exciting games against our friends TIGERs Mannheim, LUHbots (Hanover), RoboTeam Twente (Netherlands) and NAMeC (Bordeaux, France).

The tournament is a great opportunity to learn more about robotics and artificial intelligence at European universities and to see robots from some of the world’s best teams at play.

Come and experience exciting games and a unique atmosphere!

See you on April 1st and 2nd in Crailsheim!

Workshop February 2023

Posted on by

In order to get our robots fit for the upcoming games and tournaments and to assemble them, we held a workshop on the last weekend in February 2023.

On Friday afternoon, the work in the subteams started straight away. The construction and calibration of a playing field as a replacement for our currently unusable basement was particularly important on this day. The chair FAPS kindly provided us with an area in its hall. There we first had to roll out the carpet, set up the bands and attach our camera for the vision system to the ceiling. The vision could then be calibrated step by step starting in the evening, so that testing in the field could begin on Saturday. Finally, we let the evening end with a pizza we ordered together and talks.

Saturday started at 10 a.m. with a joint breakfast and a presentation of the work status and goals for the weekend. In electronics, for example, the weekend was all about soldering and testing new boards for the robot fleet.

In the firmware, work was mainly done on the firing logic and the regulation. This also required numerous test drives on the new replacement pitch.

In addition, the strategy team worked diligently on a numerical simulation of our shot. With the background information from the various areas of our team, we have set up a very extensive dynamic model. From this we want to derive improvements in the hardware and a more accurate model for the shooting behavior.

On Sunday we started again with breakfast together, before the projects were then pursued further in the individual sub-teams. In this way, many tasks could be successfully solved before the workshop ended in a cozy get-together in the afternoon.