The Team
We are an entirely student run team of thirty plus engineering and computer science students dedicated to creating a team of autonomous soccer playing robots. Together we tackle both the technical and administrative aspects of a project, gaining a valuable university experience that cannot be provided in the classroom. This year we have two team captains to cover both the technical and administrative aspects. There are also leads for the mechanical, control, and programming sub teams.
The Competition
The UBC Thunderbots aim to compete in the annual international Robocup competition and conference, held this year in Austria. The conference aims to promote research in Artificial Intelligence, robotics, and related fields. There are multiple leagues of competition ranging from the nano-scale league to the humanoid league. Our team is competing in the small sized soccer league, which puts two teams of five robots up against each other.
The Robots
Our fully autonomous robots are small enough to fit in a cylinder of 18cm diameter and 15cm height, yet are powerful enough to kick a golf ball at 7m/s and fast enough to travel at over 2.5 m/s. They collaborate based on wireless commands received from a computer ("the coach") which analyzes the match through real-time processing of images taken with a camera ("the eyes") mounted 4 meters above the field.
The Website
For more details, please visit our website at www.ubcrobocup.com.
