Competitive robot soccer: a design experience for undergraduate students

This paper describes our approach to the culminating design experience for electrical and computer engineering majors, currently in its fourth year. In a single semester course, teams of students design, build, and program robots to play one-on-one soccer autonomously. Each robot has an onboard microcontroller and a wireless link to a dedicated computer that is connected to a camera above the playing field. Each team must fabricate its own robot and write the software required to process the camera image, communicate with the robot, implement the low-level control, and make high-level playing decisions. The likelihood of each team's success is enhanced by a series of lectures and labs focusing on both technical and process management aspects of the project. Climaxing in a well-attended final competition in a public venue, the project has proven to be popular with students, faculty, and industrial sponsors alike.