Menu

HolyokeCodes: Soccer Robots

August 1, 2019

Students at a HolyokeCodes Soccer Robotics program learn to play soccer with robots using JavaScript.
RoboCup is an international scientific initiative with the goal of advancing the state of the art of intelligent robots. When established in 1997, the original mission was to field a team of robots capable of winning against the human soccer World Cup champions by 2050.
Of the multiple Robocup Soccer leagues that exist, the “Small Size” league is one of the oldest. Arjun Guha and Joydeep Biswas, assistant professors in the College of Information and Computer Sciences at UMass Amherst, and their students adapted the UMass Minute Bots Robocup Team robots (which they use to compete in Small Size league competition), to a JavaScript interface designed for high school students. Centrally controlled via radio, using perception based on a central overhead camera, the robots can travel up to 5 m/s and kick, chip-kick, and dribble a golf ball.
Over the course of a week in early July, local area students in grades 9 through 12 learned basic commands to control the robots, developed simple planning algorithms, and programmed behaviors for offensive and defensive roles with the week culminating in a series of 2 v 2 matches. Students came away from the activity with a new appreciation for the problems of intelligent multi-robot/agent cooperation and control in the highly dynamic environment of even a toy soccer pitch plus plenty of hands-on coding and robotics experience.

Links

Holyoke Codes

Previous Post:
Next Post:

Research projects

Foldit
Dusty With a Chance of Star Formation
Checking the Medicine Cabinet to Interrupt COVID-19 at the Molecular Level
Not Too Hot, Not Too Cold But Still, Is It Just Right?​
Smashing Discoveries​
Microbiome Pattern Hunting
Modeling the Air we Breathe
Exploring Phytoplankton Diversity
The Computer Will See You Now
Computing the Toll of Trapped Diamondback Terrapins
Edging Towards a Greener Future
Physics-driven Drug Discovery
Modeling Plasma-Surface Interactions
Sensing Subduction Zones
Neural Networks & Earthquakes
Small Stars, Smaller Planets, Big Computing
Data Visualization using Climate Reanalyzer
Getting to Grips with Glassy Materials
Modeling Molecular Engines
Forest Mapping: When the Budworms come to Dinner
Exploring Thermoelectric Behavior at the Nanoscale
The Trickiness of Talking to Computers
A Genomic Take on Geobiology
From Grass to Gas
Teaching Computers to Identify Odors
From Games to Brains
The Trouble with Turbulence
A New Twist
A Little Bit of This… A Little Bit of That..
Looking Like an Alien!
Locking Up Computing
Modeling Supernovae
Sound Solution
Lessons in a Virtual Test Tube​
Crack Computing
Automated Real-time Medical Imaging Analysis
Towards a Smarter Greener Grid
Heading Off Head Blight
Organic Light-Harvesting Antennae
Art and AI
Excited by Photons
Tapping into an Ocean of Data
Computing Global Change
Star Power
Engineering the Human Microbiome
Computing Social Capital
Computers Diagnosing Disease
All Research Projects

Collaborative projects

ALL Collaborative PROJECTS

Outreach & Education Projects

See ALL Scholarships
100 Bigelow Street, Holyoke, MA 01040