Game against Italy

The biggest robot soccer competition ever kicked off this year on Aug.4, in Seattle, Washington with over 100 entrants competing in differentleagues for the title of top team.

Billed as the largest and most important autonomous robot competitionin the world, the tournament was in its fifth year, having attracted teamsfrom over 23 countries.

The contest was established with the ultimate aim of creating a squadof mechanical players that can take on, and beat, the best human teams, by2050 (see http://www.robocup.org ).

Over the past few years, teams from Iran have achieved spectacularresults in the games, becoming the world champions in the midsize leaguein 1999, European champions in 2000, and third in the world in 2000.

This year, many teams from Iran qualified for the competitions.Qualification is typically based on reaching a verifiable and provenspecified level of performance, for both software (simulation) andhardware (small/midsize) teams.

Participating teams were:

1. Simulation League: Sharif Arvand, Sharif University of Technology
2. Simulation League: UTUtd, Tehran University
3. Simulation League: Pasargad, Amirkabir University of Technology
4. Simulation League: Helli-Respina, Allameh Helli High School
5. Simulation League: SBCe, Shahid Beheshti University
6. Rescue Simulation: Arian, Sharif University of Technology
7. Small Robot League: Sharif CESR, Sharif University of Technology
8. Midsize Robot League: Sharif CE, Sharif University of Technology

Those attending the competitions in Seattle included 11 students and 4faculty members from Sharif University of Technology (Profs. Amir HosseinJahangir, Mansour Jamzad, Mohammad Taghi Manzuri, and Jafar Habibi), inaddition to 3 students from Tehran University, and 1 student (and the onlyfemale team member) from Amirkabir University of Technology. Other teammembers from these schools and other universities participated remotelyfrom Tehran. Some of the members (from Amirkabir University and AllamehHelli High School especially) did so since they were unable to obtain USvisas for travel to Seattle despite repeated attempts and much effort.

The competitions were held in the Washington State Convention and TradeCenter in downtown Seattle. The scene at the two halls where thecompetition was taking place was a very dynamic one, with studentsreporting results back to Tehran via the Internet, and team members inTehran working late into the night to incorporate the latest strategiesinto team programs and uploading and testing them almost live in Seattle.The dedication and enthusiasm of the students was very much evident andthe level of excitement, especially in live chat and programming sessionsat 2 am with Tehran, absolutely incredible.

The teams received financial support through various groups andorganizations, their own schools, the Sharif University Association (forSharif students), and the Science and Arts Foundation (for TehranUniversity, Allameh Helli High School, and Amirkabir Universitystudents).

A summary of the results achieved by Iranian teams in this year's gamesis given below:

1. Engineering Challenge Award: Best engineering paper award(from among 83 submitted papers) went to the following paper from SharifUniversity of Technology:

   "A First Vision System for Middle Size Robots in Robocup", M. Jamzad,B.S. Sadjad, V.S. Mirrokni, M. Kazemi, H. Chitsaz, A. Heydarnoori, M.T.Hajiaghai, and E. Chiniforooshan, Computer Engineering Department, SharifUniversity of Technology, Iran.

2. World Champions: Rescue Simulation League: Arian Team,Sharif University of Technology.

   The Arian team dominated the games here after beating, among others,the Japan University of Electro-Communications and the Japan AdvancedInstitute of Science and Technology. This league was largely populated byteams from Japan, with the only 2 non-Japanese teams from Iran (led byProf. Jafar Habibi) and Australia (also beaten by Iran).

   Full details and scores can be found here .

3. World Champions: Coach Competition: Simulation League:Arvand Team, Sharif University of Technology.

   In achieving this title, Sharif Arvand beat the teams from TokyoInstitute of Technology (2-0), KUL Belgium (3-0), University of Bremen,Germany (16-0), Linkoping University, Sweden (11-0), Carnegie MellonUniversity, USA (5-1), and the University of Essex (4-2).

4. First Place: Scientific Evaluation Challenge: SimulationLeague: Allameh Helli High School, Tehran, led by Mr. Ahmad Morshedianfrom Tehran.

   The Helli-Respina team was the only high school team that qualified andparticipated in the games and drew the attention of practically everybodywith their performance. They beat teams from schools such as University ofLubeck, Germany (8-0), University of Alberta, Canada (23-0), University ofGirona, Spain (3-0), and the University of Tehran (4-0), while drawing 0-0against Humboldt University, Germany. During the second round ofSimulation League competitions, they were ranked the top team in"Scientific Challenge" among 24 qualifying teams. They also ranked thirdin the Coach Competition, Simulation League.

   Photos and latest news of the Helli-Respina team can be found on the teamhomepage .

5. World Champions: Rescue Robot League: In this league no teamachieved the required score and therefore no winners were announced.However, from the technical stand point, the team from Sharif Universitywas recognized as the best team and took the best working robot award.

   
   World Champion: Rescue Robot League

   The search-and-rescue prototype robot, designed by the SharifUniversity, was recognized as the best robot among six competing machines- five from the US and one from the UK.

   The robots had been programmed to autonomously search for probableinjured people on a hypothetical quake-stricken and mountainous terrain,independent from human steering. The Iranian robot managed to identify thehighest number of the injured.

   Sharif's Rescue Robot team is featured this month in MIT'sTechnology Review .

6. World Class Performance by Other Schools: Teams from TehranUniversity and Shahid Beheshti University also made it to the second roundof Simulation League games. Tehran University beat teams from NagoyaInstitute of Technology, Japan (23-0), University of Osnabrueck, Germany(4-0), and Humboldt University, Germany (3-1). Shahid BeheshtiUniversity's team beat Dalhousie University, Canada (6-1), University ofOulu, Finland (5-2), and the University of Virginia, USA (12-0).

   The Iranian hardware teams (midsize and small size) did not fare aswell as past years due to unexpected on site technical difficulties mostlywith the robots' wireless communication systems. Nonetheless they didmanage to beat many strong opponents.

   This year marked Iran's first participation in the Small Size League,in a team led by Prof. Mohammad Taghi Manzuri, Sharif University ofTechnology, which beat University of Alberta, Canada (4-1).

   Iran's Midsize League team, led by Prof. Mansour Jamzad (WorldChampions in 1999, Eurocup champions 2001, and third place winners in2000), beat Rome University "La Sapienza", Italy (10-0), and theUniversity of Ulm, Germany (4-1). The very innovative design of theirrobot however, won the competition's engineering challenge award (see item1 above).

Thanks to support received by the Science and Arts Foundation fromIranians worldwide, and especially the Iranian community in Seattle andthe Silicon Valley, a number of post-game events were arranged for theteams including a tour of Microsoft.

A banquet dinner was also organized for team members by the SharifUniversity Association during which awards were presented to studentmembers of teams from Sharif. Teams from Tehran University, AmirkabirUniversity, and Allameh Helli High School (some of whom are in Iran)received, or will soon receive similar awards from the Science and ArtsFoundation.

About 6 weeks prior to the games, it came to the attention of theScience and Arts Foundation that many teams have financial difficultiesthat may prevent them from attending the competition. SAF consequentlydecided to ask Iranian expatriates to help with this cause. This call wasenthusiastically answered and resulted in $22,435 dollars to beraised.

The expenses for teams other than Sharif University amounted to about$10,000. This included purchase of over $3,000 worth of technical books tobe donated to Sharif University Library.

The remainder of the fund will be used for next year's competitionwhich will be held at the same time as the Soccer Worldcup in in Japan,and where Iran expects to have many more teams participating. SAF hopesto raise the necessary funds by mid-2002 so that money will not be anissue for next year's qualifying teams. We estimate the cost will be about$30,000.

In talks with team leaders from Iran, SAF also expressed stronginterest in supporting robocup teams from the provinces for next year, aswell as participating in and supporting a project at Amirkabir Universityon design and implementation of an autonomous landmine detection robot(critical for Iran and many other war-stricken countries worldwide). Moredetails will follow.

The Science and Arts Foundation wishes to extend its sincere thanks andgratitude to all those who helped with the costs associated withsupporting this event, as well as coordination of activities before andduring the games, and especially the Iranian community in Seattle whohelped with all they could, cheered the teams on during the games andprovided much needed and appreciated local support.

Once again, thank you all. See you in Robocup 2002 in Japan!