Robot football
Mirosot is a variety of robot football run under the organisation of the FIRA robot football association.
Two teams of small, wheeled robots (less than 7.5cm*7.5cm*7.5cm) attempt to score goals against one another by pushing an orange golf ball into the opposing team’s goal area. The teams are fully autonomous, using strategies programmed into a central computer to control the robots based on images supplied by a camera suspended above the pitch. Commands are sent by radio to each robot to control their movements.
There are several Mirosot leagues which cover different sizes of teams, most commonly 5-a-side and 11-a-side. Different team sizes play on different sized pitches. Each year international competitions are held between research groups to find the best teams, culminating in the FIRA World Cup.
In 2004, I founded the MK Mechs Mirosot team at the Open University. As the sole human member of the team I collaborated closely with the University of Plymouth and the University of Warwick. This led to the formation of the POWerbots, a combined team formed from the three universities to represent the UK at international Mirosot competitions. Between 2004 and 2006 the POWerbots competed at European Championships and World Cups, reaching the quarter finals at the 2006 World Cup.
Videos
The following video shows a clip from the quater finals of the 5v5 Mirosot tournament in 2006, with the POWerbots (in Blue) taking on previous World Champions Austria (yellow).
The video below shows a clip from the impressive final of the 11v11 Mirosot tournament in 2006.