Domo Arigoto, Mr. Roboto

In a dimly lit Harvard basement, robots are on the move. They kick, shoot, pass, and score. And they may soon dominate the world—the soccer world, that is.

Since last spring, the Cambridge Robotic Futbol Club (CRFC) has been creating a team of robots that can play soccer without any human involvement for 20 minutes. The club, which consists of 35 Harvard and MIT undergraduate robot enthusiasts, hopes to qualify for the international showdown of simulated soccer players: the RoboCup World Cup.

“The ultimate goal of RoboCup is to create a team of robots that can beat the World Cup champions by 2050,” says club Co-President Jeffrey K.L. Ma ’07.

But with the average robot standing at just 15 cm tall, it certainly will take some time–or at least a growth spurt–before these robots make it to the big (human) league. In the more immediate future, the CRFC is focused on dominating the US Robot Futbol League—without a goaltender.

“We might design a goalie, but probably not,” says Jie Tang ’08, a club co-technical director. Apparently the CRFC will depend on its superb defense and offense to vanquish its opponents. Their latest mode of attack is the “chip kicker,” a specialized robot that can propel the ball into the air.

RoboCup isn’t all fun and electronic games, however. Tang says that he’s been putting in eight to ten hours per day in their Pierce Hall lab. “I don’t go to class, I go to required sections, and then I come to the [robot] lab,” he says, almost robotically.

While some members manage to find time for other activities, others acknowledge robots have an all-consuming grip over their souls. Says Y. Richard Gong ‘09 only half-jokingly, “RoboCup is my life.”