One
of the competing teams from US Naval Academy has been using the microbot design
that is documented in Craig's
Ph.D. Dissertation and in this
paper. Watch the McGray microbot in action
here!Nanogram RoboCup Soccer
NIST was the host of the first nanogram RoboCup soccer demonstration in 2007. Competition rules, and information on the nanogram soccer fields and balls can be found here. Craig McGray at NIST is leading the effort to organize these events. In May of 2008 Carnegie Mellon was the host of the second nanogram soccer demonstration. NIST also provides a competition kit that includes the playing field and instructions. Here is the draft release information for the kit.
One
of the competing teams from US Naval Academy has been using the microbot design
that is documented in Craig's
Ph.D. Dissertation and in this
paper. Watch the McGray microbot in action
here!
The
team from the Institute of Robotics and Intelligent Systems (IRIS)
at ETH Zurich has demonstrated a magnetically powered and steered microbot
that has performed very well. Their design is documented in this
paper. Watch the ETH robot in a nanosoccer game
here.
Carnegie
Mellon University has also entered the competition with a magnetically
controlled nanobot from the
NanoRobotics Lab. See the CMU robot in action
here.
The group at the Department of Engineering Sciences at Upsala University in Sweden has done extensive work on micro-scale robots. Here is an interesting article on actuation principles for nanobots.
The Johns Hopkins University RoboCup soccer team was formed in June 2008. Our goal is to design a nanogram MEMS RoboCup soccer "player" and field a team at RoboCup 2009 in Austria. This endeavor offers unique opportunities for students with different backgrounds across departments and to work together towards a goal that is not only rewarding from an educational view but also a lot of fun! Samara Firebaugh at the U.S. Naval Academy has articulated the latter very well here.
Follow our progress and accomplishments here!
News:
June 30th, 2008: The JHU nanogram RoboCup soccer team is supported by Kenan Grant.
October 27th, 2008: An ECE design team is formed and lead by Sean McVeigh (sean dot mcveigh at jhu dot edu). If you are interested in being part of the team contact him or me.
October 30th, 2008: The local organizing committee for RoboCup 2009 has officially accepted NIST application to hold a RoboCup Nanogram competition in Graz, Austria June 29th to July 5th. Here is the call for proposals to participate as well as a draft of the official rules.