Dutch Nao Team

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Here is an update of our last day in Iran. It’s a bit late, because yesterday I really was too tired to write this all down, but here it is, so enjoy!

In the morning we learned that we had come third into the research competition (despite Duncan skipping some slides with small remarks like “don’t know what this is”, “some formula’s I don’t understand”, among others).
We also prepared a bit for our match against Autman (from Iran), though now we had only one working robot left. Needless to say, it was a massacre: we lost to them 6-0.
After this, most of us just started walking around a bit to watch the other leagues, like the 2D-simulation and de-miner leagues. It was really great to see how much enthusiasm the visitors had for all the games. With all the cheering, it was almost as if this was a soccer match with human players!
We also got some presents from the girls who helped us at the event. The guys got a leather armbands, and Inge got some really nice earrings. If any of you are reading this, then I really would like to thank you for making this a great event for all of us!
We also had our own little soccer match, where our team proved to be unbeatable for once.

Then it was time for the closing ceremony. This took very long (about 4 hours I think), and as we had so little sleep it was difficult to stay awake. Fortunately we were alerted to the fact that Duncan could collect our trophy for the research competition.

After that it was time for group pictures. It was fun to see how they always started with just two or three people, and then grew until we had to stand on a wobbly tribune so everybody could fit.


After that we returned to the hotel, dropped our bags, and, together with the people from the event, went to the mountains in taxis. There we had a walk, enjoyed the view and talked for a bit with our new Iranian friends.

I realy enjoyed myself, but I was really tired. I only got about an hour of sleep that night, as the bus was waiting in front of the hotel at 4.30 already. I walked to the plane like a zombie and fell asleep, the lights of Tehran quickly dissapearing beneath me.

I hope you enjoyed reading the blog as much as I did making it. Stay tuned for our adventures in Mexico this summer!

Today we had our match against MRL. There was at first some confusion, because we thought we had to play Autman, but this proved not to be the case. We lost to them with 0-2, as they were superior both in walking speed and vision speed. This meant we had to win from the Chinese team to stay in the running. They had no working robots, but this match still ended in only a 1-0 victory for DNT. We were even very close to scoring an own goal, as we opted to played without a keeper to maximize our offense. But it was a victory none the less.

After the matches were done, there were the presentations for each team. Most of the teams showed their research here, which was very interesting. However, some teams only learned very late that they had to present something, so they were a bit unprepared. Our presentation also wasn’t that great, but at least we were there, and we were able to present a few interesting things like the Human Interface (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pn1tsf68V4w&feature=g-all-a&list=PL8741754957B129F2&context=G20fbe89FAAAAAAAAAAA) and Dynamic Tree Localisation.
After the presentations we were taken out to dinner in a very nice Iranian restaurant. Its interior was very nice, with high cusions instead of tables.
Here we discovered that the Iranian cuisine did consist mostly of kebab dishes (to the amusement of both us and our Iranian friends), but there was fish and a very nice dish with eggplant I forgot the name of too. Also, it was the anniversary of a girl in the Humboldt team, so we had some birthday cake.

All in all a great evening!

8.30 DNT vs. MRL (Iran): 0-2

14.45 DNT vs. DreamwingSP  (China): 1-0!
Okay, there were no Chinese robots in the game for most of the time, and we almost made an own goal, which was only averted by some original slapstick-esque behavior between two of our nao’s, but we scored our first goal and WON!

By the way, it looks like we are going to be tied for third place with Humboldt from Germany. This means we will have to play against them again. Will keep you posted!

Today were our first matches! It was kind of stressfull to get all the right code on the naos and configure them accordingly, but fortunately everything was done with a lot less stress than last year. Our matches both ended in 0-0, due to our walk not being that good, and vision having a limited range. Also, because we could not connect to the wireless network correctly, communcation did not work. We all got to work to fix these issues.

Also, we were invited to go party in Iran. Unfortunately, we were advised not to go, because it was the aniversary of some kind of saint. Moussa said that it was no problem to go tomorrow. I hope we can go then. Anyways, we returned to the hotel, did some coding and went to bed.

Today we are going to play our first games!
Game times are given in Dutch time, for your convenience:

11:30: Against Nao Team Humboldt (Germany)

14:30: Against Kouretes (Greece)

Wish us luck!

Update: We had a tie against Humboldt, the winners of the previous Iran Open. Awesome!

Update: Another tie against Kouretes. Vision needs to improve, and the fact that the nao could not connect to the network did not help with communication…

Today we had to hurry! We had to leave earlier than yesterday, but we didn’t know that. So today, the early risers had to quickly wake everybody up and finish their eggs (their own eggs, that is).
The rest of the day was pretty much the same as yesterday. We did some programming again today, and made a bit of progress. Auke had worked/gamed through the night, so he was very tired. He even went to sleep next to the field!

Unfortunately we had some trouble with our walking algorithm. The first steps were always too rapid, and therefore the robot fell a lot. We hope we can fix this, as the matches are tomorrow.
When we returned to the hotel, we resumed programming again. Well, not all of us, as Duncan started exercising a bit.

Most of us just let him to it and went to sleep though.

This morning we went to the venue. As we had no internet connection in the hotel, this was the first opportunity to check the code from back home (at a snail’s pace), check our e-mail, and of course update the blog you have come to love already!
Erik and Sander worked a bit to get the communication between the naos going, Michael worked on his calibration tool, Inge and Maarten were trying to make the keeper be able to get back to his goal correctly. Chiel and Auke allegedly speeded up our ball recognition 3000 times.
We also tried to go to another hotel with internet, but the only other option for us was to stay in a “men only hotel”, which would mean leaving Inge behind.

Because we were not willing to do that (and already had mental pictures of a “men only hotel”), we elected to stay in the old hotel instead. I mean, who uses the internet anyway these days?
Also, Inge got a scarf and a “manteau” from our sponsors today, to ensure she looks good on photos and television. Doesn’t she look fabulous?

After returning to the hotel some of us went shopping for food. They even returned with eggs to spice up our next breakfast!

Well fed, we resumed programming again, as the matches are nearing rapidly. Wish us luck!

Hello friends of the Dutch Nao Team! Here is the first update of our trip to Iran.
We arrived here yesterday on Imam Khomeini Airport, already having finished our first kebabs.
Trying to get through customs proved not to be easy, as our teammember Cmlal’s passport reported his name to be “Camiel”. Fortunately this was easily rectified with a ballpoint. After getting through customs, were brought to our hotel. When we arrived we set out immediately to install our wireless network to test the naos. Unfortunately, there were several defects that made a few naos inoperational.
After a short night’s sleep we had a meeting to determine what would be our tasks for the day. Then we started programming with the naos that still worked.

During our lunch (kebab number 2) we asked if we could take an excursion to the Shah’s palace gardens, but unfortunately this trip did not materialize. So instead we continued to spend the afternoon programming. Fortunately we had a little help from the naos themselves.

Professor Arnoud was suddenly transferred to a reportedly amazing hotel. We hope we can join him there soon.
In the evening we started gaming a little bit to relax, and then we returned to our programming duties again.
Tensions quickly rose already on the first day, but fortunately Auke and Camiel could resolve their differences with a stupid deathmatch in the game “Ninja vs Ninja”. They seem to be pacified now.

Stay tuned for an update tomorrow of our trip!

The following teams will participate in the Standard Platform League of the Iran Open 2012:

• Dutch Nao Team, Camiel Verschoor, Universiteit van Amsterdam
• Berlin United – NaoTH, Marcus Scheunemann, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
• DreamwingSP, Longshu Li, Anhui University
• Kouretes, Nikolaos Kofinas, Technical University of Crete
• AUTMan, Soroush Sadeghnejad, Amirkabir University of Technology
• MRL-SPL, Ehsan Hashemi, QIAU

In the following links you can find some background information about the teams:
Dutch Nao Team, 2012, Team Description Paper
AUTMan, 2012, Team Description Paper
Noxious-Kouretes, 2011, Team Description Paper
MRL, 2011, Team Description Paper

Have fun reading!