Ole, Ole Ole, for Irish world champ robots
An Irish team went to the Robot World Cup in China for the first time earlier this month
AMID all the celebrations over Padraig Harrington, it may have gone unnoticed that Ireland won a soccer world cup on Sunday.
But then these players were never going to crow about their victory -- not least because they can't speak.
An Irish team went to the Robot World Cup in China for the first time earlier this month hoping, like every Irish world cup team, to upset the odds and reach a semi-final.
"But it went much better than that," Professor Rick Middleton, of NUI Maynooth, said yesterday. "We achieved all our goals and eventually won the final. All the credit has to go to the students who really worked hard."
The ultimate goal of Robocup is to develop a team of humanoid robots with enough artificial intelligence to win a game of football against the human world champions. And this is to happen by 2050.
"They're a long way off, and they know they're a long way off," Prof Middleton said. "But the organisers will ask you to think of the first flights by the Wright brothers and then ask how long was it before man was on the moon?"
Alexander Buckley, an electronic engineer, and Shekman Tang, a computer scientist, flew out to China for the team's matches last week.
The games were four-a-side and played on a small pitch for 20 minutes. Despite scoring a disastrous own goal in their opening group game, the Irish team qualified from their group and eventually went on to defeat a US side in the final.
It went to a penalty shoot out (left) and ended one-nil for the Irish squad.
- Jason O'Brien
