[robocup-humanoid] New Humanoid League Website

[Oskar von Stryk]

Dear Alberto,

On Fri, 26 Sep 2008, adallarena at aol.com wrote:
<...>

Thanks a lot for your report and information from the Mexican National 
Robotic´s Competition 2008. It is great to hear that the event went well.


> Among the most important issues of discussion we had:
> 
> 1) We played with an red, standard tennis ball. We´ve got the suggestion of painting a standard tennis ball with orange paint (used for painting the clothes). This kind of ink can be easily acquired on stores and has only one orange tone. The ink is added to water and the ball is plunged on the solution. After two hours a red colored ball is ready for playing. One litter of the solution last for at least 10 or more balls.

This may be an interesting alternativ to teams who cannot
obtain the original orange tennis balls which, e.g.,
are sold in Canada.

Please be aware that at RoboCup colors and lightings are usually a
bit different than at your home lab. Special care should be taken
to make color recognition robust.


> 2) There was an special issue with the qualification for the finals. Originally we were four teams, but one team could not finish his robots on time for the event. So we were only three teams in the competition. We
>  played a round-robin stage and the winner of the RR stage was supposed to play the final match against the winner of the semi final game, played by the 2nd and 3rd ranked teams of the RR stage. 
> 
> At the end of the RR, all the teams had the same points, no goals. 2 points each team, so we decided to play a penalty kicking round, but the problem was who would shoot against who. At the end we decided to kick five consecutive penalties each team (without goal keeper), and the team that scores more goals were the RR winner, Fortunately our team Pumas-UNAM scored and the rest did not, but the main issue was that we need to find out a better way of solving this kind of situations.

As soon as teams have developed better scoring abilities
(as the very most teams in humanoid kid size 2008 had)
this problem will not be relevant anymore.

 
> 3) There is an important fact to discuss. When a penalty kick starts, there is a minute to score the penalty, but what happens if the ball enters in the goal area limits after a kick is done, the kicker is far away and there is still time in the clock.
> 
> The referee has to wait until the time ends?. In one shoot the goal keeper was doing some rare movements after the ball stopped in his area (about 20 centimeters away from the ball), and the kicking team (Bogobots) argued that there was a possibility for the goal keeper to keep moving towards the ball and eventually mark a self-goal. Finally I decided not to repeat the kick, because I had given some similar advantage to the Bogobots goal keeper in the previous kick. At the end all the teams agreed i
>
> n stopping the kick as soon as the ball stops inside the goal area. We wanted to promote teams to mark goals instead of deciding the winner for the final round as the team who scores fewer goals in the self area. 
> 
> Bogobots told me that in the Teen-Size League there were similar problems with Team Osaka who marked a self-goal. My personal opinion is that if the kicker hits the ball and if in the way of the ball towards the goal area is touched by the goalie and the ball enters, or the ball hits a post and hits the goalie and enters (In other words: if the ball is still moving)  the goal counts. Just like rules of a standard FIFA soccer match. I think we have to encourage the efforts of the goalie to deviate the ball's trajectory.

I agree with this interpretation.
Then we should add in the rules §14 for the penalty kick
that the trial also ends if the ball stops in the marked area
around the goal.


> 4) What happens if the ball is kicked by any team just in the central spot and it goes over the central line all leaves the field exactly in the middle (I know there is a little possibility of that, but this really happened!). I just put back the ball in the restarting mark over the central line next to the side the ball exited.  Is this correct?

This seems reasonable to me.


> 5) In the semi-final match that ended 0-0 in regular time, both teams decided not to play extra-time and go directly into penalty kicks. For the final match one team (ours) wanted to play extra time and the other did not. Finally we played extra time for the final. At the end the winner was decided in a penalty round. Is this a
>  special issue to be discussed, or we have to apply the rules above all? (if the teams want to kick penalties directly).

To me it seems OK if both teams agree on moving to penalty kicks
without over time directly.

Please consider also Rule 7.1.3:

If during regular playing time
none of the two teams in a knock-out match was able to kick the ball to 
reach their respective
opponent's goal the extra time is skipped and the game immediately 
continues by the five
alternating penalty kick trials


> 6) With the experience of the past Robocup, I used a projector and a loud speaker for the finals, this was for many spectators the only way to appreciate the penalties. I think it was a fundamental aid. I suggest you can use it in your local tournaments and in future Robocups.

Such requirements are already being discussed by the general 
organisators of RoboCup 2009 in Graz.
I hope that we will have in next year's final and semi-final games two 
mics, one for the main referee and one for a game commentor.
Also several ways of videostreaming are discussed for 2009.


> 7) All the teams that participated agreed that this kind of competitions could be taken on count as "official games" for future teams classification, because now we know that the league has reached its limit in the number of participants.

In the past qualification based on local open competitions has
not been shown a good solution for many reasons.
However, it is an excellent opportunity to determine and improve robot 
performance.


Best regards,
Oskar von Stryk