DARwIn will be America's first humanoid RoboCup competitor

In a fitting tribute to the pioneering scientist after whom it was named, Virginia Tech's Dynamic Anthropomorphic Robot with Intelligence (DARwIn) has finally "evolved" enough (it's now on the fourth iteration, DARwIn IIb) to compete in the traditional Japanese sport of robot soccer. The VT team -- composed of striker DARwIn IIa and goalie DARwIn I -- will reportedly be the first US competitors in the humanoid division of the popular RoboCup tournament, whose 2007 finals are actually being held right here on American soil in Atlanta. DIIa, the more sophisticated of the Robotics & Mechanisms Laboratory's (RoMeLa's) two bots, is built around a LabVIEW-powered 1.4GHz Pentium M with 1GB of RAM, 256KB of flash memory, 23 total actuators, a pair of FireWire cameras, and a gyroscope -- clearly the delicate head-mounted cam was designed before the head-butting ugliness of World Cup 2006. Keep reading to check out a vid of big D in action -- as well as tumbling over -- and then hit up the Read link for more pics, specs, and action-packed soccerbot clips.

[strider_mt2k @ Mar 16th 2007 7:21AM]

I hope all the little ones gang up on him.

[kizildere @ Mar 16th 2007 8:01AM]

VT Alumni here!

w00t

[Jonathan @ Mar 16th 2007 2:02PM]

Go Hokies!!
how about that basketball team eh?

[Chuckles McGee @ Mar 16th 2007 10:43AM]

Combine his vision processing with ASIMO's running and battery life and we have a winner.

[Victor (Mister A) @ Mar 16th 2007 12:04PM]

Real nice, nice to see a School from here in the US compete in something that isn't already dominated by us. Best of luck to them and their group.

[Rob @ Mar 16th 2007 12:58PM]

DARwIn FTW!

Go USA!

[rodan32 @ Mar 16th 2007 1:37PM]

Now we've got a shot at the world cup. Kiss our shiny metal asses, Brazil and France!

[adelossa @ Mar 16th 2007 6:26PM]

I for one welcome our soccer playing robot overlords.

[Reginald @ Mar 16th 2007 10:16PM]

Team America, F**k Yeah!

[berserkerazn @ Mar 16th 2007 11:42PM]

Tech pride! :D

[Pierre @ Mar 19th 2007 12:49PM]

All that programming and expense, and it doesn't even raise it's arms when it scores? That would have gotten a lot more sponsormoney.

Still some work to do.

Seriously? I think it's cute. Let the guy behind the monitor in the back sow him a t-shirt when he's not busy.

[William King @ Jun 11th 2007 7:10PM]

Every one involved with this project deserves a huge pat on the back, and many, many endorsements. DARwin IIb is simply amazing. But why doesn't he(big assumption there)have more computing power? Why not load all ya can? Also, if possible, how does DARwin IIb balance?

VT, Recently you have shown great courage and strength to the world, now, you have shown great enginerring CAN come from the US...YOU GUYS ROCK!!!

PS, excuse my engineering ingnorance that is shown by my questions / comments; I'm so amazed by this accomplishment.