[robocup-nao] Mediterranean Open results

[Luca Iocchi]

Dear SPL Robocuppers and TC,
I would like to send a quick report of the games held in Rome within
the RoboCup Mediterranean Open
http://www.robocup-mediterranean-open.org/


First of all, I want to thank the teams for their participation,
and Aldebaran for their support during the competition.

* Austrian-Kangaroos, Austria
* Les Trois Mousquetaires (L3M), France
* Nao Team Humboldt, Germany
* Kouretes, Greece
* SPQR, Italy + Chile
* Los Hidalgos, Spain
* SpiTeam, Spain
* MetroSpelBots, USA

Details on the results are on the web-site.
Congratulations to Los Hidalgos, Spain for winning the competition (and 
2,000 Euros prize)!

Second, I have two remarks on the rules:

1) 4.5 Kick-off Shot

A kick-off shot that score a goal directly (i.e. before the ball leave 
the circle)
can occur in 4 situations:
- kick-off team score directly in the opponent goal
- kick-off team score directly in its own goal
- non kick-off team score directly in the opponent goal
- non kick-off team score directly in its own goal

Does the rule in section 4.5 apply to all the situations, or just in 
some of them?

2) 3.3 Goal

"a goal can never be awarded where the last contact of the ball with a 
robot was by the
arm or hand (even if unintentional -- see also Section 4.9) of an 
attacking robot"

There are some situations in which unintentional contact with arms or 
hands, even though
it does not score a goal, it gives an advantage for the team. For example,
- in the Sudden Death Shoot-Out, touching the ball with an harm of a 
falling robot can give
an advantage to team (in terms of distance to the goal) even if no score 
is awarded.
- during the normal game, a touch with arm/hand can put the ball in a 
position that provoke
an own goal by the defending team.

Does the unintentional touch affect only scoring a goal or should be 
interpreted also in cases
where there is a clear advantage for the team (i.e., an almost-goal)?


About the new ball, we did not notice big differences between playing 
with the matt or the shiny version.
 From a poll after the first day of set-up, 3 teams preferred the shiny 
ball, 3 teams the matt one, 2 teams had
no preferences. We decided to let the team agree before the match on 
which ball to use.
I personally noticed some situations in which the robots could not see 
the ball, but I cannot tell the reason.
Maybe teams can add their experiences.

Finally, we organized a small workshop, in order to share knowledge and 
to know each other better.
We spent a couple of hours talking about our research activities, which 
I think it is always a good thing to do.
The list of talks and some of the presentations are again available on 
the web site
http://www.robocup-mediterranean-open.org/node/23


I hope these notes will be useful for the next competitions.

Best regards,
Luca Iocchi