RoboTeam Twente

RoboTeam Twente comprises a diverse group of students hailing from the University of Twente and Saxion University of Applied Sciences. Their mission revolves around driving innovation and sparking inspiration in robotics and artificial intelligence. Their chosen platform for achieving this goal is none other than the prestigious RoboCup, scheduled to take place in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, in July 2024.

Within the RoboCup, various competitions unfold, one of which is the thrilling autonomous robot football category. RoboTeam Twente enthusiastically partakes in the A-division of the small-size league within this autonomous robot football arena. In this exciting arena, two teams engage in fierce matches, each deploying a squad of eleven diminutive football robots.

The essence of this league lies in the art of intelligent multi-agent collaboration and control, all within a highly dynamic environment governed by a hybrid centralised/distributed system. As they gear up for the 2024 competition, RoboTeam Twente prepares to enter their seventh year in the RoboCup.

This video briefly introduces RoboTeam and all our different subteams. Each subteam is in charge of a different part of the robot.

This year, our electronics subteam wants to do a total redesign of our electronics, making everything more modular. All PCBs will communicate over a CAN bus, making sure PCBs can be easily upgraded or replaced. Another advantage for this is that every board can be debugged without first assembling an entire robot.

Below is (a first render of the prototype of) the kicker chipper board. This board will make sure we can kick the ball at exactly 6.5m/s, the limit set by the competition. Shooting to hard results in a free kick for the opponent team, while shooting not hard makes the ball easier to intercept. Hence, precision is key here. The capacitors are discharged into a solenoid which in turn moves a plunger forward.

Next to our kicker chipper board, we have a mother board, a power board, a dribbler board and motor drivers. More on that can be found on our wiki, https://wiki.roboteamtwente.nl/technical/electronics/start. This is also a cool aspect of our team and our competition. Everything we do is open source. After the world championship, every team must make all of their innovations of the previous year open source. This forces every team to keep innovation, since other can catch up more easily.

With the support of PCBWay's, we would be able to make this piece of critical hardware reliable and consistent, making sure RoboTeam can ascend the podium once more, seeking to etch their name in the annals of RoboCup history.