Qualified teams

Congratulation! Following teams (listed in alphabetical order) are qualified for RoboCup 2005 Small Size League competition.

Note: If you need Japanese visa, note the following,
1) It takes 3 months to get visa. Early action is necessary. Delay of action might cause a serious problem.
2) As soon as team members are fixed, request letters of invitation to Osaka City as written on the web page. (The web page will be ready soon.)

Reserved Teams (Preference order)

How did we select the teams?

The purpose of this article is to explain some of the qualification process and to help teams that did not qualify this year, qualify for future years. Also it is hoped that this article will pro actively stop many of the individual requests to the OC regarding 'why my team wasn't qualified'.

Firstly 33 teams attempted to qualify for 20 places, so 13 teams are going to miss out. It should also be noted that the 3 best teams from RoboCup 2004 are automatically qualified so it is really 30 teams for 17 places. Qualification for the world RoboCup competition is about finding the best possible 20 teams to compete.

Working from the instructions on the Small Size League Qualification web page:
" Your team video for RoboCup 2005 must be made public by midnight Feb. 15th (EST). The video must be 30-60 seconds of unedited footage. Video where you team is conforming to the 2004 rules is acceptable for submission. The Qualification video can be either of the following type although preference will be given to item 1:

1. A 30-60 seconds duration unedited video of your robots participating in a RoboCup standard game (i.e. a game at RoboCup or one of the local regional competitions). The Video should show obstacle avoidance, shooting and passing skill.
2. A 30-60 seconds duration unedited video footage of your robots (there must be at least 2, more preferred ) playing a game against a set of 5 opponents (moving opponents preferred). Video should show obstacle avoidance, shooting and passing skill.

The team video is used by the OC to determine the readiness of a team to compete effectively and is part of the criteria in ranking teams in the qualification process. Teams are advised to submit a video that best demonstrates the readiness of the team to compete in an international competition."

Some important statements are:
"The Video should show obstacle avoidance, shooting and passing skill."
This is one of the important statements. This statement had three of the important criteria for ranking teams. Generally:
In regard to OBSTACLE AVOIDANCE higher marks were awarded for the number of robots that were avoided and how dynamic the environment was (ie moving obstacles).
In regard to SHOOTING higher marks were awarded for shooting in the presence of obstacles, shooting in the presence of dynamic (moving) obstacles, and the way that the ball was acquired and shot. Also just pushing the ball into the goal is not nearly as good as kicking it in.
Many teams did not submit any video showing PASSING skill. This immediately put them at a disadvantage. The more dynamic the passing became the higher the mark for that criteria (ie from a  moving robot, to a moving robot, around moving robots.)

"Video where you team is conforming to the 2004 rules is acceptable for submission." "The team video is used by the OC to determine the readiness of a team to compete effectively"
This means that preference is given to teams who demonstrate their robot system working under the 2005 or 2004 rules. For example preference was given to teams that demonstrate their robots playing on the 2004/2005 sized field. Robot videos from other leagues or the 2003 rules put the team at a disadvantage. In regard to competing effectively several criteria were used.
OFFENCE - How good is your offence? Can you move the ball up the field? Can you shoot past defenders? Is their any coordination in the offence?
DEFENCE - How good is your teams defence? How well can you tackle and regain possession? How good is your Goalie at covering the goal and saving shots. Are your defenders coordinated?
PLAYING WELL - Overall how well does your robots play a game of soccer? Are they coordinated? Do there seem to be any system problems? Are robots just spinning on the spot? How smooth and controlled is the motion of your robots?

The scores from these criteria are then used to give an overall score and then the teams are ranked. The 4 OC members each individually did this whole process. We then compared our rankings for any major differences and derived the final rankings.

Hopefully we have explained some of the qualification process. Yes it is based solely on 30-60 seconds of video of the robot team ~6 months before the competition. We understand that a lot can happen in that time but it is the best method proposed so far. If anyone has any better ideas for the qualification process for future years please submit them either to the Small Size League Mailing List or to an Organising Committee member.