RoboCup 2023 in Bordeaux - Day 5 - 2nd Game Day
Anyone can win!
WF Wolves vs. RO:BIT
Today again it meant getting up early, packing our things and getting to the robots as early as possible – the next game against team RO:BIT already started in the morning. Gambi and Sara were in the starting lineup. At first everything looked as if this match might go more successfully after yesterday’s painful defeat. Sara and Gambi were already standing on the field while the RO:BITs had some starting difficulties. Unfortunately, our team then also had problems finding the ball on the field, and one or two of the falls were very painful. After we had been standing alone on the field for a while, RO:BIT joined us. In the end, we unfortunately had to admit defeat at 2-0 – not even the motivational speeches of our team leader Tom to Sara and Gambi helped.
During the break, the team screwed, glued and taped all the robots back into working order, while our supporters again took care of everyone’s physical well-being.
WF Wolves vs. RoboFEI
In the second game of the day, we played team RoboFEI. In this game, too, our robots didn’t want to show what potential slumbers within them – something in the software still wasn’t running as smoothly as hoped. But the opponent also had massive problems and couldn’t score a goal. So the teams parted after the game with a final score of 0-0.
In a somewhat longer breather than in the previous games, our software developers adjusted the ball detection a bit more, in the hope of coaxing out that decisive bit of performance from the robots that would help us to a long-awaited win. The tests on the turf were already very promising, at any rate. After all, the next game is about which team wins the German-German derby. In the Intermediate Match (Note: The equally ranked teams from the respective round-robin groups play one match against each other in the Intermediate Match), the team from the Hamburg Bit-Bots was already waiting for us.
Hamburg Bit-Bots vs. WF Wolves
This year the Bit-Bots competed with their robots converted to ROS2. Unfortunately, things didn’t go particularly well for either team in this match. The hoped-for adjustment of the ball detection was fundamentally good, but on fast movements it also tended to mistake the robot’s own shoulder for the ball. At least that gave us the odd laugh when Jutta preferred to focus on her own shoulder instead of the ball. In the end, an Extended Shoot-Out (Note: Similar to a penalty shoot-out) had to be held. Since unfortunately no goal was scored for either team here either, despite the brilliant kicking attempts of our robots, it was decided at the end of the match that the team that touched the ball more often wins. According to the officials, team Bit-Bots managed this a full 5 times, while we were only able to touch the ball 3 times in total. So this game was unfortunately also lost, 5-3, but of course we are still happy for our friends from Hamburg.
RO:BIT vs. WF Wolves
In the return round, another match against team RO:BIT was on the schedule, which the South Koreans again won, this time even with a final score of 3-0. It remains frustrating that, despite well-running robots, a win just doesn’t come. Never mind, there is still one game to play and all teammates stay focused until the bitter end!
WF Wolves vs. BarelangFC
The last game of the day is against the team BarelangFC from Indonesia, and they can really play good soccer. Despite all the heart and soul we were still able to invest in our robots, we had no chance against such a good team in the end. The result of 0-10 was the bittersweet cherry on the loser cake on a pitch-black day. But that’s life: sometimes you lose and sometimes the others win …
The game is over.
… and for us it means that we were eliminated from the World Championship in the group stage, before the knockout rounds. Of course it’s a crying shame that we were knocked out of the competition so early, but there was still no feeling of helplessness about it in the team. We took away many insights, experiences and incentives for improvement. Despite the nerve-racking two game days, the team worked wonderfully harmoniously hand in hand. Every member knew their own tasks and gave everything and more in those areas. In the end, everyone was glad that, as a largely new team since the pandemic-related break of over 3 years, we learned a lot and were already able to uncover and eliminate many problems of the past. Now it’s about fixing the rest, and then the cards will be reshuffled at RoboCup 2024!
Since we have no more games from tomorrow on and can devote ourselves to other things, we headed back to the hotel earlier today than in the last few days, and after a great dinner together we let the day wind down with beer and, naturally, a glass of wine on one of our balconies.
Here you can find all the results of the humanoid team games.