Team DARwIn Receives First Place at RoboCup World Championships
Team DARwIn has held true to its reputation of robotic soccer dominance, returning to the U.S. the winners of the 2013 RoboCup World Championships in the Humanoid Kid-Size League for the third straight year (not even Lebron James can say that!).
Team members who traveled to the competition in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, include engineering undergraduates Alan Aquino (CMPE); Dickens He (EE); Tatenda Mushonga (MEAM); SAS undergraduate Chris Akatsuka; master’s student Yida Zhang (SSE); Robotics master’s students Richa Agrawal, Samarth Brahmbhatt and Vibhavari Dasagi; doctoral student Steve McGill (ESE); and postdoctoral fellow Seung-Joon Yi. The team is advised by Dan Lee, professor of Electrical and Systems Engineering and director of the GRASP Lab.
The teams spent a week competing, going undefeated throughout the tournament against teams from Mexico, Indonesia, Germany, China (Tsinghua University) and Iran to reach the semi-finals. In the semi-finals, DARwIn took on bigger and heavier robots from Zhejiang University in China, but the DARwIn’s speed and agility made the match into an 8-2 rout putting them into the championship match.
Their opponent in the Championship match came from Tehran Polytechnic in Iran, who beat last year’s second-place place Japanese team to reach the final match. Team DARwIn started out on a sour note, giving up some early goals to lightning fast strikes from the Iranian team, and entered half-time at a 3-2 disadvantage.
DARwIn made some last-minute adjustments, and came out in the second half on fire. They took control of the game with their
maneuvering and quick kicks. At the final whistle, the score stood 7-4 in favor of DARwIn and a three-peat championship trophy.