For the first time, an independent soccer robot tournament was organized by the RoboTeam Twente. The tournament served the purpose of testing and training the robots before the participation in the RoboCup2019 in June and to maintain the good relations with other European Small Size League teams.
German opponents
RoboTeam Twente invited ER-Force and TIGERS Mannheim to Enschede for the duration of four days. The first two days were spent setting up the tournament site and fine-tuning the robots. The third day, Saturday, was the culmination of the visit: four games were scheduled to be played within one day in front of an audience of 50 persons.
The tournament kicked off with ER-Force and TIGERS Mannheim playing against each other. The game was visibly among equals, with rare interruptions by the referee. However, TIGERS Mannheim, conquered ER-Force with two goals and established it's positioning in the top range of the tournament.
The game was followed by a match between TIGERS Mannheim and RoboTeam Twente. While TIGERS Mannheim was playing sovereignly, RoboTeam Twente had more issues complying with the regulations. The team was punished with 6 yellow cards, which resulted in the putting aside of robots for several minutes. Underpowered, RoboTeam Twente stood no chance and lost the game with a score of 10:0.
The decision to let ER-Force and TIGERS Mannheim to play the final game was made as to ensure that all games could be played within the day.
The final game was truly showing a battle between two strong teams, where both teams did not recoil from rough encounter of the robots. After overtime and penalties, the game was declared a draw. Since TIGERS Mannheim had won more goals during the match, the tournaments cup was awarded to the wildcats.
Serious test
"RoboTeam Twente had strong individual robots that performed well, until team performance was tested. With several yellow cards and consequently few robots on the field, our robots stood no chance to the stable and smart performance of TIGERS Mannheim. On the other hand our team is glad to have played in this important tournament, as it allowed us to map our weaknesses and will tackle these before the RoboCup2019. We would also like to point out the importance of connecting the Small Size League teams in Europe as to maintain friendly ties that will last for generations of robotic teams to come. The format of the friendly games was a success story, that we would like to continue."
This is a report from Roboteam Twente. Visit our Facebook-page for more photos of the event.
