Category Archives: ER-Force

RoboCup: The second day

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We continue our work on the robot on this day as well. Since the early morning hours, our team has been busy assembling the robots, soldering boards, and writing numerous lines of code for our AI. Robots constantly shuttle between the electronics and firmware teams, the sound of the mechanical team’s hand-held Dremel tool resonates throughout the entire floor, as does the continuous playing of “Never Gonna Give You Up” from the firmware room.

To give the team a little break, we have scheduled a journal club at 1:00 p.m., where all of our team members gather to discuss and determine the best publications from other teams. This is one of the tasks we must undertake as a team, as the “Best Paper Award” is awarded based on the votes of all teams. After several more hours of work, we finally transitioned to the relaxing part of the evening: cooking together and unwinding with a bottle of French wine.

It was quite fitting that we cooked pasta – after all, our robot generation is named “Pasta” as well. Thus, dinner was an homage to our metallic midfielder No. 9 – “Fussilli.”

Having been nourished, we are eagerly looking forward to tomorrow when we will finally enter the exhebition hall, and we hope to conduct some tests with our robots on the actual playing field.

Welcome to Bordeaux!

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In two days, the time has finally come: RoboCup 2023 in Bordeaux begins! But before we can really get started, the first task is to arrive properly.

And this is not so easy: After an exhausting and sometimes nerve-wracking train journey of 22 hours, accompanied by some very last-minute changes in plans from our beloved friend, Deutsche Bahn, we finally arrive at our hotel on Saturday evening. The journey and our associated emotions can be summarized very vividly with the following image:

After unloading all the suitcases in the hotel rooms, it’s time to relax and reflect on the day. The numerous French restaurants make the decision for dinner not easy, but eventually, everyone finds something delicious to eat. Our robots also enjoyed a good glass of “Grand Vin de Bordeaux,” and so the day ends in a relaxed manner.

Refreshed and fueled up, the next day we start by organizing our tools and doing some initial work on the robot. The goal is to have the entire fleet of robots ready for action by Monday evening, one day before we are allowed to enter the convention hall. Whether we succeed or not, you will find out soon.

RoboCup Crailsheim: ER-Force vs. TIGERs Mannheim

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It came as it had to: ER-Force is in the final against TIGERs Mannheim!

Both teams are tense: As expected, TIGERs Mannheim was able to deliver a more robust performance over the course of the tournament, but ER-Force did better than its competitor against some opponents. An exciting game awaits! The fans obviously knew this too, so that shortly before the start of the game the ranks fill up again: More than 100 spectators can hardly wait when it’s time to say: Let’s play soccer!

Just a few seconds after the kick-off, the spectators can experience the performance of a top-class game: the ball is almost permanently in midfield, the players give their opponents little chance for an attack. If they do, the counterattacks are dangerous, but the teams are usually able to defuse the situation.

So the first half is very exciting and without major interruptions. Finally, TIGERs Mannheim manage to grab the ball and outwit our goalkeeper with a counterattack, which means that the first half is clearly 1-0. Overall, the game appears very balanced; many passing games occur in both halves of the game.

After the second half has started and the automatic ball placement has been deactivated, the game continues as smoothly as in the first half. However, TIGERs Mannheim manages to extend their lead with a second goal during the second half. Nevertheless, the ER-Force team represent a strong adversary. The game finally ends with a wonderful and well-deserved third goal by TIGERs Mannheim.

TIGERs Mannheim is the deserved winner of this tournament and receives its well-deserved trophy at a ceremony! This ends a wonderful tournament in which the teams were able to improve their game. Finally, there is only one thing left to say: See you all in Bordeaux!

RoboCup Crailsheim: ER-Force vs. LUHbots

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After we were able to win all of the past games except that against our archenemy and good friend TIGERs Mannheim, we are now playing the game between place 2 (we) and place 3 LUHbots from Hanover.

The outcome of this game is crucial: if we can defend our second place, we’ll be in the starting eleven in the following game for the final. On the other hand, if we lose, we can only watch the game from the stands and LUHbots gets their chance. Accordingly, this game is exciting in every respect!

We were able to score a few goals right after the kick-off, so that by the end of the first half it was already 3-0 to ER-Force. After half-time, however, LUHbots were able to better defend their penalty area and the goal, making it increasingly difficult for us to score goals. Nevertheless, we were able to show our dominance as a long-established team and score another 4 goals, so that the game finally ended in our favor 7:0.

Overall, the game was beautiful to watch. It’s remarkable how much our friends from Hanover have attracted since the last RoboCup 2022. After all, LUHbots is a newly founded team that was only able to take part in a RoboCup! We can’t wait to play against this strong youth team again!

Nevertheless, with this victory and a swollen chest we are on our way to the ultimate game for the strongest team in Europe: ER-Force vs. TIGERs Mannheim at 5:00 p.m.

RoboCup Crailsheim: ER-Force vs. NAMeC

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The next match against the French team NAMEC will start soon!

Unfortunately, after there were some problems with the ER Force radio and also the strategy of the French team (e.g. their goalkeeper could only defend our goal, but not their own), the game ended early after a penalty goal by the human referee and a legitimate goal by our robots: NAMeC forfeits!

Unfortunately, the game itself wasn’t all that worth seeing. In order to still enable an exciting and fulfilling gaming experience, especially for the spectators on site, the game between place 2 (ER-Force) and place 3 (LUHbots) was brought forward instead, so that this will take place directly afterwards!

For the die-hard fans, here is the link to the stream of the game ER-Force vs. NAMeC (increasingly peppered with cynical comments towards the end):