Nearly 300 teams from around the world are competing in RoboCup 2007 at Georgia Tech this week.
The competition, which ends on July 8, is intended to help advance the technology of robotics ranging from human size to nano scale.
"RoboCup has an ambitious goal — namely to field a robot soccer team that can defeat the human world champions by 2050,” said Tucker Balch, an associate professor of computing at Georgia Tech who helped put on the Atlanta event. “This goal is meant to drive robotics research and education forward faster, and nearly all RoboCup participants come from research universities. So, it makes perfect sense that RoboCup should return to its roots on a university campus."
Balch, the general chair for RoboCup 2007, also noted that researchers and scientists can use the event to share “research and ideas for making robots more effective."
In all, some 1,700 students and faculty from 33 countries are participating.
