A diverse crowd of soccer playing robots will demonstrate their capabilities and compete at the International RoboCup Federation's 2008 US Open RoboSoccer competition, hosted this year from May 24-27 by Pittsburgh's Carnegie Science Center. The public is invited to attend.

The event, organized and chaired by Professor Manuela Veloso, of Carnegie Mellon University, and Professor Tucker Balch of the Georgia Institute of Technology, will feature soccer playing AIBOs, boxy, small-sized robots, microscopic nanobots and demonstrations of humanoids.

The first RoboCup USOpen was hosted by Carnegie Mellon in 2003 and it was then followed by yearly events hosted once by the University of New Orleans and all other times by the Georgia Institute of Technology. In addition to Carnegie Mellon and Georgia Tech, this year's event has attracted teams from Harvard/MIT, Bowdoin College, the University of Texas at Austin, Brooklyn College, Brown University and the U. S. Naval Academy.

The university's School of Computer Science is fielding teams in the small-sized (CMDragons'08) and AIBO leagues (CMDash'08), as well as a nano-sized team (Magic & Voodoo) from the Mechanical Engineering Department in the college of engineering. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is leading the organization of the nanobot demonstration/competition, which was held for the first time last year. The microscopic nanobots are operated by remote control under an optical microscope. They move in response to changing magnetic fields or electrical signals transmitted around the playing area. NIST hopes that the technology will show the usefulness of nanotechnology to fabricate MicroElectroMechanical Systems (MEMS) used in computer chips.

The US open is part of the RoboCup Federation's larger competition whose goal is to expand the field of artificial intelligence and robotics by developing a team of robot soccer players that can beat the human world champions by 2050. The competition has been held annually in countries around the world since 1997. This year's international RoboCup symposium and competitions will take place in Suzhou, China, July 14-20.

Carnegie Mellon has been competing in RoboCup since its inception. Our small-size robot team, led by Professor Manuela Veloso, took first place in 1997, 1998, 2006, and 2007. The AIBO team took first place in 1998 and 2002.

The public can view the teams setting up at the CSC Saturday, May 24th, from 10am-7pm. There may be practice games, though not scheduled at the end of Saturday. There will be games and demos throughout the day on Sunday and Monday, May 25th and 26th from 10am-5pm. Following is a schedule of activities.

Sunday, May 25th, and Monday, May 26th:
10:30 - AIBO game
11:00 - Small-size demo/game
11:30 - AIBO game
12:00 - Nano demo
12:30 - AIBO game
1:00 - Small-size demo/game
1:30 - Humanoid NAO demo
2:00 - Nano demo
2:30 - AIBO game
3:00 - Small-size demo/game
3:30 - Humanoid NAO demo
4:00 - Nano demo
4:30 - AIBO game

Tuesday, May 27th, CSC open 10am-5pm- FINALS:
10:30 - 3rd - 4th place AIBO game
11:00 - Small-size final game
11:30 - Last Humanoid NAO demo or/and Nano demo
12:00 - Final 1st-2nd place AIBO game