With no human coach at the controls, Virginia Tech’s robot soccer team dribbled, passed, and scored its way into the 2010 RoboCup “kid-size” semifinal in Singapore. The tournament founders’ goal is a robot team that will defeat the human World Cup champs by 2050.
©Max Aguilera-Hellweg/National Geographic; featured in the August 2011 issue of National Geographic, on sale July 28.