Interview with Marek Šuppa: insights into RoboCupJunior

A RoboCupJunior football suit at work.

In July this year, 2500 individuals gathered in Bordeaux forRoboCup2023 The competitors makes up a variety of organizations, and amongst them is RoboCupJunior, which is developed to present RoboCup to institution youngsters, with the emphasis getting on education and learning. There are 3 sub-leagues: Football, Rescue and OnStage.

Marek Šuppa offers on the Exec Board for RoboCupJunior, and he informed us regarding the competitors this year and the most up to date advancements in the Football organization.

What is your function in RoboCupJunior and for how long have you been included with this organization?

I began with RoboCupJunior a long time back: my very first global competitors remained in 2009 in Graz, where I was fortunate adequate to complete in Football for the very first time. Our group really did not do all that well in that occasion yet RoboCup made a deep impact therefore I remained around: initially as a rival and later on to aid arrange the RoboCupJunior Football organization. Now I am working as component of the RoboCupJunior Officers that are in charge of the organisation of RoboCupJunior overall.

Just how was the occasion this year? What were several of the highlights?

I presume this year’s motif or motto, if we were to offer it one, would certainly be “back to typical”, or something like that. Although RoboCup 2022 currently happened in-person in Thailand in 2014 after 2 years of a pandemic time out, it remained in an instead minimal capability, as COVID-19 still influenced plenty of areas. It was excellent to see that the RoboCup neighborhood had the ability to be determined and also prosper throughout the pandemic, which RoboCup 2023 was once more an occasion where hundreds of robotics and roboticists fulfill.

It would certainly likewise be hard to do this inquiry justice without giving thanks to the regional French organisers. They were in fact prepared to arrange the occasion in 2020 yet it obtained terminated as a result of COVID-19. However they did not quit on the concept and took care of to assemble a remarkable occasion this year, for which we are really grateful.

Instances of the robotics made use of by the RoboCupJunior Football groups.

Transforming to RoboCupJunior Football particularly, could you speak about the goal of the organization and just how you, as organisers, deal with knowing that goal?

The goal of RoboCupJunior includes 2 contending goals: on one hand, it requires to be an obstacle that’s friendly, fascinating and pertinent for (primarily) senior high school trainees and at the exact same time it requires to be very closely pertaining to the RoboCup “Significant” difficulties, which are dealt with by college student and their coaches. We are for this reason constantly attempting to both make it extra engaging and exciting for the trainees and at the exact same time guarantee it is technological sufficient to aid them expand in the direction of the RoboCup “Significant” difficulties.

Among the means we do that is by presenting what we call “SuperTeam” difficulties, in which groups from corresponding nations develop a supposed “SuperTeam” and complete versus one more “SuperTeam” as if these stood out groups. In RoboCupJunior Football the “SuperTeams” are made up of 4 to 5 groups and they complete on an area that is 6 times bigger than the “conventional” areas that are made use of for the private video games. While in the private suits each group can have fun with 2 robotics at the majority of (causing a 2v2 video game) in a SuperTeam suit each SuperTeam areas 5 robotics, suggesting there are 10 robotics that use the SuperTeam area throughout a SuperTeam suit. The arrangement is really comparable to the Division B of the Small Size League of RoboCup “Significant”.

The SuperTeam video games have actually existed in RoboCupJunior Football considering that 2013, so for a long time, and the comments we got on them was extremely favorable: it was a great deal of enjoyable for both the individuals along with the viewers. However contrasted to the Little Dimension Organization video games there were still 2 recognizable distinctions: the robotics did not have a method of interacting with each other and in addition, the umpires did not have a method of interacting with the robotics. The outcome was that not just existed little sychronisation amongst robotics of the exact same SuperTeam, whenever the video game required to be quit, the umpires needed to literally follow the robotics on the area to capture them and do a first after an objective was racked up. Although humorous, it’s much from just how we would certainly think of the SuperTeam video games to look.

The RoboCupJunior Football Criterion Interaction Modules goal to do both. The component itself is a tiny gadget that is affixed to each robotic on the SuperTeam area. These gadgets are all attached by means of Bluetooth to a solitary mobile phone, whereby the umpire can send out commands to all robotics on the area. The gadgets themselves likewise sustain straight message exchange in between robotics on a solitary SuperTeam, suggesting the groups do not need to spend right into finding out just how to connect with the various other robotics yet can take advantage of an usual system. The gadgets, along with their firmware, are open resource, suggesting not just that every person can develop their very own Criterion Interaction Component if they would certainly such as yet likewise that the neighborhood can take part in its growth, that makes it a fascinating enhancement to RoboCupJunior Football.

RoboCupJunior Football groups preparing yourself for the competitors.

Just how did this brand-new component exercise in the competitors? Did you see an enhancement in experience for the groups and organisers?

In this very first large public examination we concentrated on discovering just how (and whether) these components can boost the gameplay– particularly the “chasing robotics at first”. Although we have actually done “laboratory experiments” in the past and had some empirical proof that it must function instead well, this was the very first time we attempted it in a genuine competitors.

In Conclusion, I would certainly state that it was a really favorable experiment. The components themselves did function fairly well and for several of us, that occurred to have experience with “robotic chasing” discussed over, it was kind of an enchanting sensation to see the robotics quit exactly on the major umpire’s whistle.

We likewise figured out prospective locations for enhancement in the future. The components themselves do not have a source of power of their very own and were powered by the robotics themselves. We really did not assume this would certainly be an issue yet in the “real life” examination it took place that the voltage degrees the robotics can supplying fluctuates substantially– as an example when the robotic chooses to boldy increase– which consequently implies several of the components detach when the voltage is reduced substantially. Nevertheless, it wound up being a great lesson for every person included, one that we can absolutely pick up from when we develop the following versions.

The livestream from Day 4 of RoboCupJunior Football 2023. This stream consists of the SuperTeam finals and the technological difficulties. You can likewise check out the livestream of the semifinals and finals from day 3 here.

Could you inform us regarding the appearance of deep-learning versions in the RoboCupJunior organizations?

This is something we began to observe in recent times which shocked us organisers, somewhat. In our everyday work (that is, when we are not arranging RoboCup), a lot of us, the organisers, operate in locations connected to robotics, computer technology, and design generally– with several of us likewise studying in expert system and artificial intelligence. And while we constantly assumed that it would certainly be excellent to see even more of the innovative study being used at RoboCupJunior, we constantly disregarded it as something as well progressed and/or hard to establish for the senior high school trainees that consist of most of RoboCupJunior trainees.

Well, to our excellent shock, several of the advanced groups have actually begun to use techniques and modern technologies that are really near to the present cutting edge in different locations, especially computer system vision and deep knowing. An example would certainly be item detectors (typically based upon the YOLO architecture), which are currently made use of throughout all 3 Minor league: in OnStage to spot different props, robotics and people that do on the phase with each other, in Rescue to spot the targets the robotics are saving and in Football to spot the sphere, the objectives, and the challengers. And while the individuals typically made use of an off-the-shelf applications, they still required to do all the actions essential for an effective release of this modern technology: collect a dataset, finetune the deep-learning design and release it on their robotics– every one of which is much from unimportant and is really near to just how these modern technologies obtain made use of in both study and market.

Although we have actually seen just the advanced groups make use of deep-learning versions at RoboCupJunior, we anticipate that in the future we will certainly see it come to be a lot more common, particularly as the modern technology and the tooling around it ends up being elder and durable. It does reveal, nevertheless, that in spite of their age, the RoboCupJunior trainees are really near to innovative study and cutting edge modern technologies.

Activity from RoboCupJunior Football 2023.

Just how can individuals obtain associated with RCJ (either as an individual or an organiser?)

A great inquiry!

The very best area to begin would certainly be the RoboCupJunior website where one can locate numerous fascinating information regarding RoboCupJunior, the corresponding organizations (such as Football, Rescue and OnStage), and the pertinent local agents that arrange local occasions. Contacting a local rep is without a doubt the simplest method of getting going with RoboCup Junior.

Furthermore, I can absolutely suggest the RoboCupJunior forum, where numerous RoboCupJunior individuals, previous and existing, along with the organisers, go over numerous associated subjects outdoors. The neighborhood is really beginner pleasant, so if RoboCupJunior seems fascinating, do not think twice to visit and state hi!

Concerning Marek Šuppa

Marek came across AI as a teen when constructing soccer-playing robotics and rapidly knew he is not wise adequate to do all the programs by himself. Ever since, he’s been finding out means to make equipments discover on their own, especially from message and photos. He presently functions as the Principal Information Researcher at Slido (component of Cisco), boosting the method conferences are run around the globe. Remaining real to his origins, he attempts to offer others with an opportunity to have a comparable experience by arranging the RoboCupJunior competitors as component of the Exec Board.