Pop Japan

In October 1992, a few Japanese technological researchers in Tokyo discussed and facilitated a workshop on Grand Challenges in Artificial Intelligence. It discussed the challenges that they might face when they finally start their project involving the robots that can play soccer, fight among each other, and eventually win a game by just themselves. After a year of intensive experiments and investigations, in order to start the project, a group of researchers namely Minoru Asada, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, and Hiroaki Kitano launched a robot contest. It was named Robot J-League, after the name of the then newly established Japanese Professional soccer league. They didn't expect to receive a lot of entries from all over the world, thus they changed the name to the Robot World Cup or RoboCup for short.

Photo by Peter Schulz. Licensed under Creative Commons. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en)

Tags: technology, robocup, robot world cup, tokyo, japan, grand challenges in artificial intelligence, minoru asada, yasuo kuniyoshi, hiroaki kitano, robot j league, japanese professional soccer league