[robocup-nao] Number of robots for RoboCup SPL 2011

[Stefan Czarnetzki]

  Hi,

I would also like to express our thoughts about this even if I already 
did this in the TC.

When I asked around my team what they think about playing with more 
robots on the field, I got varying feedback. One team member summarized:
Few robots --> Fast, but simple role switching and high walking speeds 
are most important.
Many robots --> Walking gets less important compared to coordination, 
passing and team play.
Since he is our main walking developer, it was kind of unexpected to see 
his concluding vote for 5vs5.

Since the field size will probably stay the same, 4vs4 seems a 
reasonable (small?) step forward.

But there are also the financial and the technical support issues. Most 
teams already had more than 4 Naos last year and would not even have to 
buy new ones for 4vs4. Considering that we will most probably have no 
mandatory robot update this year and the last service contract is still 
valid for 2011, those are costs that every team had last year which will 
not be there this year and which are basically worth half a 
RoboCup-package of Naos. Thus teams that did responsible planning ahead 
already reserved most of those costs.

Concerning support and service, Aldebaran is expanding, and I heard at 
least of an office in Shanghai. Support might even be better next year, 
I would not adopt the most pessimistic view here. And for most teams it 
has already been impossible to do full test matches 3vs3 in their own 
labs, so not being able to do 4vs4 tests in our lab is basically nothing 
new. For this we must either rely more on simulation, cooperate with 
other teams close by, and most important travel to local competitions.
For support during RoboCup, I would like Aldebaran to arrive and start a 
full day or even two earlier, so that the initial load of broken robots 
can be repaired beforehand. The service necessary during the 
competitions itself (once everybody had their initially broken robots 
repaired) was already quite ok and not that problematic. If Aldebaran 
would be willing to accept this small inconvenience I guess there will 
be smooth competitions.

 From my point of view, doing 4vs4 is not such a big step forward and it 
is definitely possible for all current teams to do so.

Regards,
Stefan
(Nao Devils Dortmund)



07.10.2010 02:26, TJARK:
> Hi,
>
> After discussions with my teammates, we think this idea is very good 
> for the improvement, but there are some problems for our team.
>
> First, TJark has only five robots, if have 4v4 for 2011, we may need 
> to buy two more robots, the costs will be a huge challenge.
>
> Second, we are in china, it is very hard for us to have the robots 
> maintained, if it's for 4v4 competition, our testing might lead to 
> much more damage.
>
> We hope to see more teamwork in the games, however, as stated above, 
> we might not support that idea.
>
> Regards
> Xie Jing
> TJark
>
> -- 
> Control Science and Control Engineering Department,
> Tongji University,
> Shanghai, 201804, China
> Email: tjark.official at gmail.coim