While most of us were watching the soccer World Cup on our TVs, this hard-working NUbots team, supported by 4Tel and 4AI Systems as team sponsors and mentors, were competing in the ‘World Cup of Robotics’ at RoboCup 2026, hosted in Incheon, South Korea.
Held annually, RoboCup set an ambitious 2050 goal for a team of fully autonomous humanoid robots to win against the human world soccer champion team. Making history at this year’s competition, two full-sized humanoid robot teams played a soccer game against each other! This was a breakthrough moment for humanoid robotics, AI and autonomous systems.
Whilst the competition was too tough for this year’s NUbots team to secure a podium finish, they had a lot of fun, met incredible people from all around the world, learnt so much, and left with a long list of ideas.
Linking AI research to industry, 4Tel has been involved with the NUbots from University of Newcastle’s Robotics Research Group since 2016.
Congratulations from the 4Tel team on your fantastic effort this year! We look forward to following your progress in the lead up to RoboCup 2027 in Germany.