There are 10 seconds left in the soccer championship game, and the reigning robotic champs, Carnegie Mellon’s CMDragons, are beating Thailand’s Plasma-Z by one goal. Suddenly, a Plasma-Z robot speeds up the field and smacks the ball, causing it to sail past the CMDragons’ goalkeeper. The crowd roars. The game is headed for overtime.

Stefan Zickler is nervous. The third-year PhD student in computer science looks at his players—each an imposing six inches tall, standing stoically on four wheels.

Zickler worked on programming the players for the RoboCup small-sized soccer league world championship under the watchful eye of computer science professor Manuela Veloso, who leads the project. Rooted in research, the RoboCup competition challenges teams from around the world to create original technology that will have practical applications. For example, the technology that Zickler and his teammates have developed may advance GPS systems in cars. Soccer is merely a creative way to challenge the researchers and their robots. But once the games begin, programmers can only watch; a computer controls the players’ decisions. It’s done through a camera suspended above the playing field that tracks each robot’s movements and feeds the information into the computer, which then sends new commands to the individual robots.

A whistle blows, and the 15-minute overtime begins, When it ends, there is still no winner. Both teams scored once, so the score remains tied at 6–6. A penalty shootout comes next—up to five alternating penalty shots for each team.

The crowd is tense and cheering as they huddle around the field, fill the bleachers, and line the second-floor balcony. Junior computer science major Mike Phillips stands among the fans near the field. He’s just returned from his own stressful game in RoboCup’s four-legged league, so he knows the anxiety of the final nerve-wracking moments. “It’s like the robots even knew the stress,” he says. Phillips and his teammates placed third in their league; another team, Pittsburgh Steel, composed of faculty and students from Carnegie Mellon and the University of Pittsburgh, won the RoboCup Rescue Simulation League.

As the CMDragons’ one-on-one shootout begins, Zickler places the robot down and hopes his programming works. After the first three rounds of shots, the CMDragons lead 8–7. On round number four, the CMDragons score again, making the score 9–7. Plasma-Z must make the next shot or the team will lose because the CMDragons would be ahead by two goals with just one shot left for each team.

With the championship on the line, Plasma-Z fails to score. The crowd erupts as Zickler and his teammates dance and hug, congratulating each other on repeating as world champions.
—Brittany McCandless (HS’08)