Meet the NUbots, the pint-sized robots taking their soccer skills to Brazil

The Advertiser

05-07-2025

The robot was looking clumsy that day, the professor said with a hint of fatherly exasperation.
The little bot, about a metre tall with a childlike expression and helped by the round camera lenses set above its 3D-printed cheekbones and just below the sticker on his forehead that identified him as Kevin, had stumbled a few times finding his feet on the field.
Kevin is one of a handful of identical robots that the University of Newcastle will take to Brazil on July 11 to compete in the 2025 RoboCup.
It's an international competition for robotic engineers and their creations to advance the technology in the sector with the aspiration to field a team of robots that can defeat the human World Cup team by 2050.
Despite the stumble, he kicked his mini soccer ball cleanly into the goal set up in the laboratory on the University of Newcastle's Callaghan campus.
He had dribbled it down the right-hand touchline and punted it into the goal with careful precision, and then stumbled and fell backwards as he did so.
There was something endearing in the gesture, something all too human. It was as if, having scored the point, he had thrown himself down in celebration like a robotic Cristiano Ronaldo.
Even as his maker stepped in to help him find his paddle-feet again, he sat up with the immediacy of an indestructible kid brushing off a grazed knee.
The engineers clapped from their desks as he scored, like proud parents on the sideline.
Kevin and his teammates are autonomous. They walk and strategise independently, guided by hundreds of thousands of lines of code and machine learning models their creators have spent their academic careers developing.
Others in the league will be governed by a central computer. Others still will show off their teamwork capabilities, but might operate on wheels. Some, like the NUbots, will play soccer. Others will undertake rescue exercises, and some will even fly.
In the RoboCup, form follows function as the best minds in the sector strive to make headway and push at the boundaries of modern engineering.
"I'm quite honoured and proud to be involved and to have these talented students support the lab for so many years," Professor Stephan Chalup, who founded the university's NUbots team in 2002, said.
There was a sense of constant tension among the team as they made their last checks and polished the software that would take Kevin to Brazil next week. It was the nail-biting end of the training season, and now all eyes were on the NUbots team, which has a history of coming to win.
They took third place in 2018 RoboCup, won the best in class for dexterity in 2023, produced the best searching robots in 2022, and have featured regularly in the awards listing since joining the league.
To walk into their new lab in the campus' engineering block is to walk past a well-stocked trophy cabinet, replete with the robots who won them.
Aaron Wong, who undertook his PhD with the NUbots team and now works as an AI engineer for sponsor 4AI Systems, said the real-world applications for the robots were potentially limitless.
The bots' vision system - the two cameras that give Kevin, Frankie and the others their childlike appearance - was developed from 4Tel and fellow sponsor 4AI System's technology.
It had originally been designed for use on passenger trains. What helps Kevin find and interact with his ball could also help find potential hazards up to a kilometre down the train line, Dr Wong said, and trigger safety protocols to alert the driver.
"We can see this area here as a real test bed for what could happen in the real world," he said. "All these new ideas and new algorithms against the best of the best from the rest of the world."
Frankie's body costs in the ballpark of $10,000 to build. His brain, though, could be priceless.
That dense network of neuron-like firings and triggers, of software commands and responses in the machine, is the real breakthrough for the NUbots. It is also what keeps the team awake at night.
"Sometimes, it's three steps forward and two steps back," team leader Clayton Carlon said. "A lot of the time, it's putting out spot fires. It is one system, but there are different sub-systems that can interact with each other in ways you don't expect. So, you think you can just tweak this or make some improvement, but it has this complete butterfly effect."
Earlier this month, the NUbots moved out of their windowless lab in the basement. The team is well aware of the jokes about engineers coming out of the dark rooms downstairs, and into the light.
They now occupy a new lab on the ground floor, lined with windows.
It's meant Kevin and Frankie have a bigger field to play on, and new challenges as a resi;t. It's also meant the team are getting some exposure on the campus.
The robots are building a fan base.
"We didn't have windows like this when we were in the basement," Ysobel Sims, a senior team member, said.
"No one even knew where we were. But now we have people looking in. I'll see people photographing the robots through the windows. I think when we come around to doing recruitments, when the team gets back from the competition, we might have a lot more interest."
For Dr Wong, imagining how these robots will be used in the real-world stretches into science fiction. It is to think of the Russian chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov in 1997, losing a game to the supercomputer Deep Blue, envisioning a future where chess would one day be played on a phone during an office lunch break.
It was never just about seeing Kevin score his goal.
The robot was looking clumsy that day, the professor said with a hint of fatherly exasperation.
The little bot, about a metre tall with a childlike expression and helped by the round camera lenses set above its 3D-printed cheekbones and just below the sticker on his forehead that identified him as Kevin, had stumbled a few times finding his feet on the field.
Kevin is one of a handful of identical robots that the University of Newcastle will take to Brazil on July 11 to compete in the 2025 RoboCup.
It's an international competition for robotic engineers and their creations to advance the technology in the sector with the aspiration to field a team of robots that can defeat the human World Cup team by 2050.
Despite the stumble, he kicked his mini soccer ball cleanly into the goal set up in the laboratory on the University of Newcastle's Callaghan campus.
He had dribbled it down the right-hand touchline and punted it into the goal with careful precision, and then stumbled and fell backwards as he did so.
There was something endearing in the gesture, something all too human. It was as if, having scored the point, he had thrown himself down in celebration like a robotic Cristiano Ronaldo.
Even as his maker stepped in to help him find his paddle-feet again, he sat up with the immediacy of an indestructible kid brushing off a grazed knee.
The engineers clapped from their desks as he scored, like proud parents on the sideline.
Kevin and his teammates are autonomous. They walk and strategise independently, guided by hundreds of thousands of lines of code and machine learning models their creators have spent their academic careers developing.
Others in the league will be governed by a central computer. Others still will show off their teamwork capabilities, but might operate on wheels. Some, like the NUbots, will play soccer. Others will undertake rescue exercises, and some will even fly.
In the RoboCup, form follows function as the best minds in the sector strive to make headway and push at the boundaries of modern engineering.
"I'm quite honoured and proud to be involved and to have these talented students support the lab for so many years," Professor Stephan Chalup, who founded the university's NUbots team in 2002, said.
There was a sense of constant tension among the team as they made their last checks and polished the software that would take Kevin to Brazil next week. It was the nail-biting end of the training season, and now all eyes were on the NUbots team, which has a history of coming to win.
They took third place in 2018 RoboCup, won the best in class for dexterity in 2023, produced the best searching robots in 2022, and have featured regularly in the awards listing since joining the league.
To walk into their new lab in the campus' engineering block is to walk past a well-stocked trophy cabinet, replete with the robots who won them.
Aaron Wong, who undertook his PhD with the NUbots team and now works as an AI engineer for sponsor 4AI Systems, said the real-world applications for the robots were potentially limitless.
The bots' vision system - the two cameras that give Kevin, Frankie and the others their childlike appearance - was developed from 4Tel and fellow sponsor 4AI System's technology.
It had originally been designed for use on passenger trains. What helps Kevin find and interact with his ball could also help find potential hazards up to a kilometre down the train line, Dr Wong said, and trigger safety protocols to alert the driver.
"We can see this area here as a real test bed for what could happen in the real world," he said. "All these new ideas and new algorithms against the best of the best from the rest of the world."
Frankie's body costs in the ballpark of $10,000 to build. His brain, though, could be priceless.
That dense network of neuron-like firings and triggers, of software commands and responses in the machine, is the real breakthrough for the NUbots. It is also what keeps the team awake at night.
"Sometimes, it's three steps forward and two steps back," team leader Clayton Carlon said. "A lot of the time, it's putting out spot fires. It is one system, but there are different sub-systems that can interact with each other in ways you don't expect. So, you think you can just tweak this or make some improvement, but it has this complete butterfly effect."
Earlier this month, the NUbots moved out of their windowless lab in the basement. The team is well aware of the jokes about engineers coming out of the dark rooms downstairs, and into the light.
They now occupy a new lab on the ground floor, lined with windows.
It's meant Kevin and Frankie have a bigger field to play on, and new challenges as a resi;t. It's also meant the team are getting some exposure on the campus.
The robots are building a fan base.
"We didn't have windows like this when we were in the basement," Ysobel Sims, a senior team member, said.
"No one even knew where we were. But now we have people looking in. I'll see people photographing the robots through the windows. I think when we come around to doing recruitments, when the team gets back from the competition, we might have a lot more interest."
For Dr Wong, imagining how these robots will be used in the real-world stretches into science fiction. It is to think of the Russian chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov in 1997, losing a game to the supercomputer Deep Blue, envisioning a future where chess would one day be played on a phone during an office lunch break.
It was never just about seeing Kevin score his goal.
The robot was looking clumsy that day, the professor said with a hint of fatherly exasperation.
The little bot, about a metre tall with a childlike expression and helped by the round camera lenses set above its 3D-printed cheekbones and just below the sticker on his forehead that identified him as Kevin, had stumbled a few times finding his feet on the field.
Kevin is one of a handful of identical robots that the University of Newcastle will take to Brazil on July 11 to compete in the 2025 RoboCup.
It's an international competition for robotic engineers and their creations to advance the technology in the sector with the aspiration to field a team of robots that can defeat the human World Cup team by 2050.
Despite the stumble, he kicked his mini soccer ball cleanly into the goal set up in the laboratory on the University of Newcastle's Callaghan campus.
He had dribbled it down the right-hand touchline and punted it into the goal with careful precision, and then stumbled and fell backwards as he did so.
There was something endearing in the gesture, something all too human. It was as if, having scored the point, he had thrown himself down in celebration like a robotic Cristiano Ronaldo.
Even as his maker stepped in to help him find his paddle-feet again, he sat up with the immediacy of an indestructible kid brushing off a grazed knee.
The engineers clapped from their desks as he scored, like proud parents on the sideline.
Kevin and his teammates are autonomous. They walk and strategise independently, guided by hundreds of thousands of lines of code and machine learning models their creators have spent their academic careers developing.
Others in the league will be governed by a central computer. Others still will show off their teamwork capabilities, but might operate on wheels. Some, like the NUbots, will play soccer. Others will undertake rescue exercises, and some will even fly.
In the RoboCup, form follows function as the best minds in the sector strive to make headway and push at the boundaries of modern engineering.
"I'm quite honoured and proud to be involved and to have these talented students support the lab for so many years," Professor Stephan Chalup, who founded the university's NUbots team in 2002, said.
There was a sense of constant tension among the team as they made their last checks and polished the software that would take Kevin to Brazil next week. It was the nail-biting end of the training season, and now all eyes were on the NUbots team, which has a history of coming to win.
They took third place in 2018 RoboCup, won the best in class for dexterity in 2023, produced the best searching robots in 2022, and have featured regularly in the awards listing since joining the league.
To walk into their new lab in the campus' engineering block is to walk past a well-stocked trophy cabinet, replete with the robots who won them.
Aaron Wong, who undertook his PhD with the NUbots team and now works as an AI engineer for sponsor 4AI Systems, said the real-world applications for the robots were potentially limitless.
The bots' vision system - the two cameras that give Kevin, Frankie and the others their childlike appearance - was developed from 4Tel and fellow sponsor 4AI System's technology.
It had originally been designed for use on passenger trains. What helps Kevin find and interact with his ball could also help find potential hazards up to a kilometre down the train line, Dr Wong said, and trigger safety protocols to alert the driver.
"We can see this area here as a real test bed for what could happen in the real world," he said. "All these new ideas and new algorithms against the best of the best from the rest of the world."
Frankie's body costs in the ballpark of $10,000 to build. His brain, though, could be priceless.
That dense network of neuron-like firings and triggers, of software commands and responses in the machine, is the real breakthrough for the NUbots. It is also what keeps the team awake at night.
"Sometimes, it's three steps forward and two steps back," team leader Clayton Carlon said. "A lot of the time, it's putting out spot fires. It is one system, but there are different sub-systems that can interact with each other in ways you don't expect. So, you think you can just tweak this or make some improvement, but it has this complete butterfly effect."
Earlier this month, the NUbots moved out of their windowless lab in the basement. The team is well aware of the jokes about engineers coming out of the dark rooms downstairs, and into the light.
They now occupy a new lab on the ground floor, lined with windows.
It's meant Kevin and Frankie have a bigger field to play on, and new challenges as a resi;t. It's also meant the team are getting some exposure on the campus.
The robots are building a fan base.
"We didn't have windows like this when we were in the basement," Ysobel Sims, a senior team member, said.
"No one even knew where we were. But now we have people looking in. I'll see people photographing the robots through the windows. I think when we come around to doing recruitments, when the team gets back from the competition, we might have a lot more interest."
For Dr Wong, imagining how these robots will be used in the real-world stretches into science fiction. It is to think of the Russian chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov in 1997, losing a game to the supercomputer Deep Blue, envisioning a future where chess would one day be played on a phone during an office lunch break.
It was never just about seeing Kevin score his goal.
The robot was looking clumsy that day, the professor said with a hint of fatherly exasperation.
The little bot, about a metre tall with a childlike expression and helped by the round camera lenses set above its 3D-printed cheekbones and just below the sticker on his forehead that identified him as Kevin, had stumbled a few times finding his feet on the field.
Kevin is one of a handful of identical robots that the University of Newcastle will take to Brazil on July 11 to compete in the 2025 RoboCup.
It's an international competition for robotic engineers and their creations to advance the technology in the sector with the aspiration to field a team of robots that can defeat the human World Cup team by 2050.
Despite the stumble, he kicked his mini soccer ball cleanly into the goal set up in the laboratory on the University of Newcastle's Callaghan campus.
He had dribbled it down the right-hand touchline and punted it into the goal with careful precision, and then stumbled and fell backwards as he did so.
There was something endearing in the gesture, something all too human. It was as if, having scored the point, he had thrown himself down in celebration like a robotic Cristiano Ronaldo.
Even as his maker stepped in to help him find his paddle-feet again, he sat up with the immediacy of an indestructible kid brushing off a grazed knee.
The engineers clapped from their desks as he scored, like proud parents on the sideline.
Kevin and his teammates are autonomous. They walk and strategise independently, guided by hundreds of thousands of lines of code and machine learning models their creators have spent their academic careers developing.
Others in the league will be governed by a central computer. Others still will show off their teamwork capabilities, but might operate on wheels. Some, like the NUbots, will play soccer. Others will undertake rescue exercises, and some will even fly.
In the RoboCup, form follows function as the best minds in the sector strive to make headway and push at the boundaries of modern engineering.
"I'm quite honoured and proud to be involved and to have these talented students support the lab for so many years," Professor Stephan Chalup, who founded the university's NUbots team in 2002, said.
There was a sense of constant tension among the team as they made their last checks and polished the software that would take Kevin to Brazil next week. It was the nail-biting end of the training season, and now all eyes were on the NUbots team, which has a history of coming to win.
They took third place in 2018 RoboCup, won the best in class for dexterity in 2023, produced the best searching robots in 2022, and have featured regularly in the awards listing since joining the league.
To walk into their new lab in the campus' engineering block is to walk past a well-stocked trophy cabinet, replete with the robots who won them.
Aaron Wong, who undertook his PhD with the NUbots team and now works as an AI engineer for sponsor 4AI Systems, said the real-world applications for the robots were potentially limitless.
The bots' vision system - the two cameras that give Kevin, Frankie and the others their childlike appearance - was developed from 4Tel and fellow sponsor 4AI System's technology.
It had originally been designed for use on passenger trains. What helps Kevin find and interact with his ball could also help find potential hazards up to a kilometre down the train line, Dr Wong said, and trigger safety protocols to alert the driver.
"We can see this area here as a real test bed for what could happen in the real world," he said. "All these new ideas and new algorithms against the best of the best from the rest of the world."
Frankie's body costs in the ballpark of $10,000 to build. His brain, though, could be priceless.
That dense network of neuron-like firings and triggers, of software commands and responses in the machine, is the real breakthrough for the NUbots. It is also what keeps the team awake at night.
"Sometimes, it's three steps forward and two steps back," team leader Clayton Carlon said. "A lot of the time, it's putting out spot fires. It is one system, but there are different sub-systems that can interact with each other in ways you don't expect. So, you think you can just tweak this or make some improvement, but it has this complete butterfly effect."
Earlier this month, the NUbots moved out of their windowless lab in the basement. The team is well aware of the jokes about engineers coming out of the dark rooms downstairs, and into the light.
They now occupy a new lab on the ground floor, lined with windows.
It's meant Kevin and Frankie have a bigger field to play on, and new challenges as a resi;t. It's also meant the team are getting some exposure on the campus.
The robots are building a fan base.
"We didn't have windows like this when we were in the basement," Ysobel Sims, a senior team member, said.
"No one even knew where we were. But now we have people looking in. I'll see people photographing the robots through the windows. I think when we come around to doing recruitments, when the team gets back from the competition, we might have a lot more interest."
For Dr Wong, imagining how these robots will be used in the real-world stretches into science fiction. It is to think of the Russian chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov in 1997, losing a game to the supercomputer Deep Blue, envisioning a future where chess would one day be played on a phone during an office lunch break.
It was never just about seeing Kevin score his goal.