The Spanish team won after the “timed” penalty kicks: their forward scored quicker than the German one.
The Standard Platform League categoryat the Robocup Mediterranean Open featured university teams from eight countries. The Spanish “Los Hidalgos” team will participate in the Singapore Championships as the first placed team in the humanoid robot soccer competition that featured the Nao robots move autonomously via sophisticated software programming.
Maricarmen, the only girl on the team, is writing her dissertation on robot locomotion and acts as the field coach. During the first two days, the Spanish team won two matches and lost one. The team includes students from the Institute of Industrial Automation (Polytechnic University of Valencia) and the University of Murcia (IT Department).
“The software archtecture of Nao is both simple and potent,” Manuel explains. The Spanish team feared that they would have to face the Austrian or French teams because they consider their robots “more stable and capable of kicking with greater strength and precision,” Pedro points out. However, they met the German Team Humboldt in the finals.
The winning penalty kick.
