3rd in the world, FIRA HuroCup 2016, Beijing

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The FIRA Hurocup is an international multi-event sporting competition for humanoid robots that has been held annually since 2002 as part of the FIRA robot world cup, this year hosted by Beijing, China.  The HuroCup consists of multiple events that challenge the breadth of robot design and control, emphasizing the development of flexible, robust solutions.  Participants earn points across the various events (this year, a long jump, marathon, sprint, obstacle run, soccer penalty kicks, basketball free throws, and United Soccer, where teams are formed dynamically from individual participants without prior interaction). These points then contribute to an overall placement.

This year we fielded two separate teams, small and medium size robots. We placed third in the world overall in the medium size league, accumulating points across the spread of events, including 2nd place in the long jump and 3rd place in the marathon.  We also placed first in long jump in the small size division.

For the first time this year, most of the team members were third and second year undergraduate students, so they deserve a huge round of congratulations! Our team leader in Beijing was Meng Cheng Lau, our post-doctoral fellow, and he traveled to Beijing with Andy (Chi Fung) Lung from third year and Colin Waldner from second year. A huge amount of work goes into preparing our robots, and the development involves far more people than we could possibly send in person. Thus the full list of people involved is extensive. In addition to Jacky Baltes and John Anderson and our Ph.D. student Amir Hosseinmemar, the collection of undergraduates that deserve congratulations for their contributions are:

 

 

Many thanks for all the work you have put in, and for doing this in the middle of the exam period!