Some ran, others rolled and particle-sized ones even scooted, as Carnegie Mellon University robots shot and scored impressive results in the International RoboCup Federation's 2007 soccer competition in Atlanta.

	Carnegie Mellon University winning robots: Resembling cookie tins on wheels, the CMDragons won a world championship in the small-sized robot league for the second straight year at the International RoboCup Federation's 2007 RoboCup competition in Atlanta. Click photo for larger image.

During games last weekend, Carnegie Mellon's CMDragons won a world championship in the small-sized robot league for the second straight year. The school's team of robots resembling cookie tins on wheels defeated 12 other teams for the gold medal.

Manuela Veloso, the Carnegie Mellon computer science professor who helped create the competition 10 years ago, expressed pride in the university's showing among teams from 33 countries.

"They did an amazing job, developing robots with speed and ability," she said of students and faculty members who built and programmed the victorious CMDragons team that won the championship in a shoot-out with Thailand's Plazma-Z team to settle a 6-6 tie.

"It was the most interesting game ever seen in RoboCup with small-sized robots," Dr. Veloso said. "We had amazing hardware, an amazing goalie and amazing defense, along with a remarkable human team."

CMDragons used the same small-sized robots it used last year. James Bruce, who completed a doctorate at Carnegie Mellon in December with plans to work for Google, led CMDragons to victory, Dr. Veloso said.

CMDash, a team consisting of Sony AIBO robots that resemble little dogs, took third place in the legged league of 24 teams. With a human support team of mostly undergraduates, the bronze medal was an impressive accomplishment, Dr. Veloso said.

Pittsburgh Steel, comprising faculty and students from Carnegie Mellon and the University of Pittsburgh, beat nine other teams to take first place in the second annual RoboCupRescue Simulation League. The team used a National Science Foundation Information Technology Research grant to develop robots that won the urban search-and-rescue competition.

Then, in the first-ever Nanogram Demonstration League, one of two Carnegie Mellon teams placed second to the winning Swiss team. In three demonstrations, the tiny robots had to cross a field, evade obstacles in a slalom trial and then push a particle-sized soccer ball to a goal while avoiding obstacles.

Those demonstrations, powered by electro-magnetic and electro-static actuation, had to be witnessed under a microscope.

This year's RoboCup also featured a soccer game between an international team of human players and a team of humanoid robots. The humans won easily, but the robots did make a few shots on goal. It marked the first time robots competed against people in soccer, Dr. Veloso said.

The goal of RoboCup is to create a humanoid robot soccer team capable of defeating the world soccer champions by 2050.

"I am very pleased that everybody did a great job," Dr. Veloso said of the Carnegie Mellon teams. "And what matters is bringing trophies home, too."