> SFU fields microscopic ‘soccer team’ at RoboCup

Document Tools

Contact:
Ash Parameswaran, 604.291.4971; param@cs.sfu.ca

Move over, David Beckham, ‘cause you ain’t seen nothin’ like the soccer team a trio of SFU engineering science PhD students has assembled for a competition in Atlanta, Georgia, which begins today.

Then again, you can’t see their “players” at all without a microscope. Known as nanobots, the nano-scale robots are six times smaller than an amoeba and they’ll be playing with a “soccer ball” no wider than a human hair on a “field” that can fit on a grain of rice.

“They work like minuscule inch worms,” says team captain Sameoto of the tiny mechanical athletes who’ll compete in the Nanogram category at the 2007 RoboCup.

The U.S. Department of Commerce's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) hosts the soccer-themed annual competition to foster innovations and advances in artificial intelligence and intelligent robotics.

NIST hopes this year’s inaugural nano teams, competing under an optical microscope on an electrode-equipped silicon microchip field via manual controls and a viewing monitor, will show the feasibility and accessibility of technologies for fabricating micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS).

The nano competition features three events: a two-millimetre goal-to-goal dash, a slalom around several "defenders" (polymer posts), and a drill requiring the robo-lads to “dribble” as many “nanoballs” as possible into goal within three minutes.

The competition includes teams from Carnegie Mellon University, the U.S. Naval Academy and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. But Sameoto says Team SFU’s squad is made of the right stuff: plastic.

“All the other bots are made from silicon. Ours are made from a special polymer MEMS process developed by SFU researchers. Our goal is to push the idea that polymer micromachining technology should be much more significant contributor to the field in the future.”

Nanobots may seem like sophisticated toys now, says the students’ advisor, engineering science professor Ash Parameswaran, director of SFU’s Institute for Micromachine and Microfabrication Research.

“But in 20 or 30 years they could be going into human bodies to clean out cholesterol deposits or any of a thousand other applications.”

Digital photo available.