Their names are Frodo, Chewie, Don, and Capo. Last year Drew Carey bet $500 that they'd win a soccer match. They're not for sale in the pet store.
A team of David Beckham clones? No. They're a squad of robotic dogs, and they sure can play soccer.
The Northern Bites, Bowdoin's "4-Legged Robocup Team," held a soccer game for its autonomous robotic dogs in Thorne on Sunday.
Each team consists of four SONY Aibo robots specially programmed by the team to play soccer on a six by four meter "field."
Bowdoin's team is captained by Henry Work '06 and made up of sophomores Mark McGranaghan, Jeremy Fishman, George Slavov, Tucker Hermans, and Johannes Strom. The team recently received a $100,000 anonymous donation that funds travel costs, Work's research, and other team expenses.
Team members will be flying to Germany on Sunday to compete against hundreds of other teams in the RoboCup German Open 2007.
Although the dogs function autonomously, students have done the programming for every minute detail of what each dog will put to use in the game. All competitors have the same manufactured robotic dog with the same hardware.
The game is to make the best software, and students build from the ground up ever more complex behaviors. Cameras in the dogs' noses take picture frames at one-thirtieth of a second, which is much faster than last year's technology. Within each picture are thousands of pixels.
Students have created software that enables each pixel to be identified by color and in connection to the shapes being formed; one fan was asked to move because of her neon green Bowdoin sweatshirt.
Each pixel within each frame taken every 30th of a second causes a decision to be made within the robot. There is even collaboration among dogs.
In the game of soccer, there is no set script for how to score a goal. The Bowdoin team is working to have the dogs think on the fly and adjust to what will work play by play.
On Sunday, the Bites pitted its latest software model against itself. There were nearly 20 children with their families cheering on the dogs.
Associate Professor of Computer Science and faculty advisor Eric Chown spoke with enthusiasm about the team's progress.
"My favorite times are when students have something to show you, and they show you something they've done that I didn't even know they were working on, and it's amazing. That's what I really love," he said.
"One of the reasons I got into this was to teach students that they're just as able to do this as graduate students from any other school," Chown added, referring to the fact that almost all other RoboCup teams are made up of graduate students. "They realize this when they're hanging out with those students at the competitions and doing the same things. It speaks to the quality of Bowdoin students. I wouldn't have signed up if I thought it was beyond the quality of Bowdoin students."
Last year was Bowdoin's first year in the RoboCup, a worldwide competition. The team members aspired to scoring one goal. They came away from the competition having scored many goals and 10th place in the world.
"You couldn't have convinced me last year that [our result] was possible in my wildest dreams," Chown said. "This year, our goals are not just to score but also to be one of the four best or the best."