'cipicchia!

RoboCup 2010 - The Final (copyright by Reuters)

Long time claimed, but impossible to demonstrate. With these words could have been described the goal scored by CHITA team to CMU (Carnagie Mellon).

Long story made short. During last RoboCup, in the match won by CMU, our team scored a goal from our half-field by using back-kick. The video is unavailable, inexplicably the CMU guy claimed: “I did not record that…”.

We believed that the proof of our moment of glory was gone forever, buried just in our memory.
But we believe in Internet! And, finally we have the proof!

“I’ve never seen back-kick scoring like this in real soccer,” he said after one of his robots found the net with a spectacular back-heel against a team from Carnegie Mellon University of the United States.

Read the complete article for discover the identity of the one!

(btw the source is reliable, is nevertheless the “Reuters“)

The first day of the RoboCup 2010 is gone, and we are almost sleeping.
The code has still some problems, and some of them are critical for having good behaviour.
The “joint” part is not completely tested, but we are quite confident we will have good matches.
The hot is damn “hot”! For those of you that were in Osaka or Suzhou, the weather is like that. I will say that it is hotter than Osaka, but with this humidity is almost impossible to breathe.

We will start the official competition on Monday, and that means we have still time to be better!
Our first test against Nao Devils was quite a mess: the behaviour was ok, but it has a critical bug preventing a good playing.
We fixed this, so next time we will play better, but they can fix bugs too…
BTW, do not worry, I believe we can made it.. LA VINCIAMO!!!!

Now, it is time to go to bed… but stay tuned for another update tomorrow (if I will survive to the humidity…)
AH! For those of you are eager to know the results, point your browser here…
Let’s go win SPQR!

Here we are… we packed everything, our code is on the svn, the shirts are printed and the robots are sleeping in the bags.
Our plane is scheduled at 15:30, so we are almost done with the time in the lab.
Well if you did not understood yet what I am talking about, we (SPQR) are leaving for the RoboCup 2010 in Singapore!

The schedule are already on the net, check it out here.

Now, I have a plane to catch, so… see you on the other side of the world!

… SPQR!!!
I know, this is what you wanted to be true. But it is not, sorry.
The real winners are Los Hidalgos, a very good Spanish team.

A key moment of the Open finals

What happen to the SPQR team? Well, the first two matches were quite bad, bad colour calibration, bad behaviours and some integration trouble.
The last one was actually quite good. Everything we developed so far was integrated and working. The colour calibration was redone and the overall behaviour was somehow the expected one.
Unfortunately we lost at the penalty kicks: our robot reached the ball, but for a bug in the code never kicked the ball.
Too bad for a team that worked every day trying to do its best. The newcomers were a little bit frustrated by this debacle, but I know that this could be a chance to do a better job.

And there will be a good occasion to prove our value very soon: our team will participate to the 1st RoboCup Tournment in Greece, held on May.
Thus, fellas, let’s back to work and let’s win the prize!

Since the organization seems to be sluggish, here it is the official schedule (the complete round robin combinations are below):

Thursday 18th

• 9:00 – 9:30 Opening ceremony
• 10:00 – 11:00 Practice matches for TV
• 11:00 – 12:00 Practice matches for schools
• 15:00 – 18:00 Round robin

Friday 19th

• 10:00 – 11:30 Round robin
• 12:00 – 14:00 Lunch time
• 14:00 – 15:00 Round robin

Saturday 20th

• to be decided: Semi-finals
• to be decided: Finals
• 12:30 Ending ceremony

The teams were grouped in these pools:

Pool A		Pool B
A1	Nao Team Humboldt	B1	SpiTeam
A2	MetroSpelBots	B2	SPQR (Cheetah)
A3	Kouretes	B3	Les Trois Mousquetaires (L3M)
A4	Austrian-Kangaroos	B4	Los Hidalgos

Finally, here there are the round robin:

I will keep you posted about the results. Hope to see there!

After two years of really hard work (and I mean really hard!), we moved our first steps
Ehm, ok, our robots moved their first steps. And most important, I saw my 3-years-research run on real platform.
I can understand you are not excited as I am, so I just invite you to came next days at the 1° Mediterranean Open!!!

For facebook-addicted, we have an event too: check it out here!

Remember to bring your caps, some flags, a very big cup of pop-corn (or two, one for me ) and some friends!
I wish you enjoy the games!

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a decision!

Dear RoboCuppers,

Thank you very much for your patience regarding the status of RoboCup 2008. We are happy to announce that we now fully expect RoboCup to go forward in Suzhou in July as planned.

(bold mine)

Read my considerations

Again, in China?

Dear all,
We are currently in forward-moving negotiations with the Suzhou LOC and feel hopeful that an agreement will be reached to keep RoboCup 2008 in Suzhou, China during the planned dates (July 13-20, 2008).
Please do NOT change your travel plans or airline tickets. A final resolution will be issued by coming Friday or earlier.

Today is Friday, it is still uncertain, but this time it seems pretty sure it will be there, again.

I don’t mind about the location, but please, please take a decision!

Yes, no, maybe.

After the bad news yesterday, it seems there is a little hope.

Dear all,

Following up on the previous message, the trustees are now working hard to   ascertain the situation and will let you know the final status as soon as possible. We will do our best to make sure that there will still be a RoboCup 2008 and will keep you posted as further information is available. For now, please don’t make any new plans, but please also don’t cancel plans. The decision will be made this weekend.

What the hell is this? There will be a RoboCup this year or not?

Discover if there will be a RoboCup

Today is an amazing day: I bought a Lonely Planet China!

© Lonely Planet

Yeah, just buy a book it is not a good reason to be happy, but it means that I’m planning to visit China.

Like every year, next July I will partecipate to the RoboCup competitions, and after a week of hard work I will take a small trip with my friends. Are you wondering where? But in China of course!

To be honest I’m a little bit worried about what Chinese government are doing: they are killing Tibetan monk manifesting for their freedom. I’m very upset about any human rights violation (I’m a member of Amnesty International).
China is not an exception. Moreover with the Olympic Games held in Beijing, it seemed that something should have changed. I guess China is loosing opportunity to change the world.

This trip will the occasion to explore a small part of an ancient culture, which nothing have to do with current Government. It is a pity that they have such a awful behavior.
I will go there for the ancient culture and not for what China is now. And I’m sure that chinese people are not the same. In the future I hope they will understand how to tolerate and respect life of human beings.