Australia wins robot football world cup in Brazil with 5-1 win over German team

An Australian team have dismantled traditional powerhouses Germany to claim the robot football world cup - and the footage is strangely hypnotic.

Despite his famous robot celebration — demonstrated here for Prince William and his 2006 World Cup colleagues — England’s Peter Crouch (far right) is not actually a robot footballer. Picture: Grant Turner.

A ruthlessly efficient 5-1 win for Australia prevented Germany from completing a World Cup double, as a team from UNSW claimed the robot football world cup overnight in Brazil.

RoboCup 2014 attracted 19 teams from around the world but none of them were a match for UNSW’s rUNSWift outfit.

The Aussie automatons racked up 37 unanswered goals on their relentless, mechanical march to the final against Team HTWK from Leipzig University of Applied Sciences in Germany, which they won after falling behind to an early goal.

Had they possessed sentient thought, the robot players would surely have drawn confidence from a surprise semi-final win over arch rivals and previous winners B-Human, also from Germany.

“We were ecstatic to beat B-Human in the semi-final yesterday after seven years of trying,” said Brad Hall from the School of Computer Science and Engineering.

“Unfortunately, during the final, after our goalie saved an attempt, he fell over and while trying to get back up and in position we conceded the only goal during the entire competition.

“To win the overall tournament, as well as the demo ‘All-Stars vs. Champions’, wrapped up a great year,” he said.

Hall said the win will enable some of his side’s veterans to hang up their keyboards.

“Some of our longer-serving team members can now retire from the league with big smiles on their faces. For our new members, I hope they are inspired to help us defend the title next year in China.”

The robots who played in the tournament are autonomous, although they sometimes need a brief hand up after a fall. All teams compete with identical robots but different software.

The UNSW team’s winning tactics were the result of 125,000 lines of code, with not a chalkboard in sight.

Head of Computer Science and Engineering at UNSW, Maurice Pagnucco paid tribute to the team’s efforts.

“Congratulations to the team and coach Bernhard Hengst for their long nights in the lab,” he said.

“This result showcases UNSW and Australian research expertise in robotics internationally.”

Their win came in the standard platform league and the competition also has small size, middle size and humanoid leagues.

Outside the white lines, the expertise developed will be translated into more serious research including robotic systems for applications in health, transport and industry.