News

Thousands of students, researchers, and industry professionals gathered in Salvador, Brazil, from July 15 to 21 for the annual RoboCup competition! RoboCup is one of the largest international robotics events, where teams develop robots across a broad range of categories and scenarios, including soccer matches, rescue robots, and household service robotics.

One of UT Austin’s Texas Robotics teams, UT Austin Villa @Home, competed in the RoboCup@Home league—achieving our highest finish ever! In this competition, teams develop autonomous service robots designed for various domestic tasks and scenarios. Robots are evaluated on their performance, with a focus on domains such as computer vision, object manipulation, and human-robot interaction and cooperation.

In the RoboCup@Home competition, robots must complete a total of eight household tasks, including identifying and storing groceries.

Raghav Arora, a Texas Robotics student and member of UT Austin Villa @Home, traveled to Brazil for the competition. He said his team’s strength in reliable algorithms with a strong theoretical foundation allowed them to perform exceptionally well.

“My favorite parts of the competition are obviously the moments when the robot performed well,” Arora said. “Especially on the second-to-last day, when the robot surpassed all expectations, jumped us to second place, and secured participation in the finals.”

Our Texas Robotics teams also finished in third place in both the Humanoid and Standard Platform League competitions.