B-Human at the Robocup German Open

Day 2: Preparations and test games

Yesterday, everyone arrived and everything was set up for the Open; today, there were function tests and test games for B-Human. At 4 pm, the team lost against Andreas in the test game, which ended with a score of 0:1… Apparently, the little NAO robots can still not even beat a single person playing alone. Nevertheless, we are continuing our work, of course, and have gained valuable knowledge for tomorrow's league game against Berlin United. We spent the rest of the day analysing what happened in the test game and rectifying the mistakes. Soon it will be time to go to bed early so that not only the robots will be fit at 10 am tomorrow!

Day 3: B-Human vs. Berlin United and B-Human vs. Nao-Devils

After our preparations yesterday, we played the first league games today. It all started at 10 am with the first official game of the German Open: B-Human against Berlin United! Already in the first half, B-Human took the lead with four goals and was clearly the better side. Things were not much different in the second half except for a short lull: Our robots could not find the ball, which was far away in the left corner of Berlin United. Improvements need to be made here... In spite of this, B-Human won against Berlin United with a final score of 6:0! At 2 pm, our second game started: B-Human against the Nao-Devils from Dortmund! Although our opponents had to take a timeout right at the beginning of the game because of a false start, we were only able to convert our slight superiority in the first half into a final score of 1:0. A second chance to score was thwarted by the opposing goalkeeper… After the break, things went better for our opponents and we had to replace a player right at the start of play. In the end, however, we were able to build on our lead and achieved a final score of 3:0!

Day 4: End of the preliminaries

At 11:00 am, we faced our hardest opponents up to then: HTWK Leipzig, which had won against Berlin United (6:0) and the Nao Devils (5:1) in the preliminaries. In the first half, both B-Human and HTWK looked good. We nevertheless managed to score two goals, one of them, however, being a lucky one with a very long ball that sailed right past the goalkeeper. Immediately after the break, things became chaotic. Many of the robots in both teams seemed to overheat and began to fall over or leave the field. B-Human dealt with the chaos more effectively, however, and was able to score a goal again. Shortly before the final whistle, the game started to get exciting again: As the HTWK goalkeeper had left the goal, there was nothing to stop a B-Human striker, who tried to score from an average distance away. - Unfortunately, without success! Seconds before the final whistle, the ball came to a stop just in front of the opposing team's goal! With a score of 3:0, however, B-Human, was still able to qualify for the final. The rest of the day was spent preparing for the last day of play. There were some changes and a test game to solve a few hardware problems… Tomorrow, B-Human is playing against Berlin United again and, depending on the result of this game, could play against HTWK or the NAO Devils in the final. We have already beaten all these opponents but, in the RoboCup, there is also a component of chance due to the real environment.

Day 5: Day of the final

As early as 9:00 am, B-Human was ready again to play against Berlin United. Due to the previous 6:0 result, we expected to win and saved our best robots for the final. In the first half, a lot of B-Human robots fell over and many of them had to be replaced. After leading in the first half, we nevertheless continued playing with the older robots and, in the end, won the game with only two robots on the pitch. Even our old robots were able to score a total of 8 goals in this game! Unfortunately, only 7 went into the opponents' goal...
In spite of this, B-Human was in the final!
Later, the final against HTWK Leipzig started. Right at the start, HTWK advanced to just before the Bremen goalposts and maintained their position there. In spite of several dangerous situations, however, they failed to score and eventually the defendants managed to move the ball into the opponents' half. This happened several times in the first half, which ended with a score of 2:0 for B-Human, and, although HTWK did not score any goals, they were dangerously close to the B-Human goal several times. After a seemingly endless half-time break, the second and decisive half started. It soon became apparent that the robots were already close to their heat limit and therefore fell over more frequently. Due to the many hardware problems and only one substitute, however, HTWK soon had to play with only four robots and, sometimes, only three. In an especially dramatic scene, a HTWK robot fell over and literally lost its head! The head then rolled over the pitch. While the HTWK robots often got in each other's way in front of their own goal, B-Human was twice able to propel a long ball down the pitch to just in front of the other team's goal but the attempt was blocked by the opponents' goalkeeper, which jumped to intercept it. The goalkeeper, however, was unable to stand up again in time before our strikers intervened and exploited the situation.