(Robot whirring)
- My name is Zoe Dingeman.
(Robot whirring)
I play football for Notre Dame.
(Suspenseful music)
Robotic football.
(suspenseful music)
- [Narrator] At the University of Notre Dame,
football is a big deal.
In the basement halls of the engineering school,
a group of students are turning their beloved
sport into science.
(upbeat music)
- The Robotic Football Club is an engineering club
with students from a variety of different
engineering majors that work together
to design, build, fabricate, and play with robots.
(chattering)
- You may not think it, but robotic football
actually is a lot like real football.
Our goal in this club is to make the game as comparable
to human football as possible.
We have, for example, a quarterback that can throw a ball.
We have wide receivers that can catch the ball.
We have offensive linemen, defensive linemen.
Offensive linemen on the kickoff team,
Connor and Michelle, I want you hitting people
on the kickoff.
Robotic football is definitely a contact sport.
You're trying to hit the other team's robots
as hard as you can,
and so you need to build designs that are robust
that can handle that sort of stress
that they're constantly placed under.
(upbeat music)
- [Narrator] From it's founding six years ago,
the club's roster now boasts 20 robot football players
at a variety of positions, all controlled
and driven by 35 humans on the sideline.
- [Zoe] This is RPM, it's our first-string quarterback
and it's a really interesting robot.
It uses semi-autonomous features to scan the field
and find the receiver that it'd like to pass to.
Once it does that, it can look at the size of the receiver
and know how far it should throw the ball to it.
This is Terabyte and it's our running back.
It's really great at finding the gap to go down the field
and get a touchdown.
Irish Chocolate is one of our linebackers
and it makes a lot of really great open-field tackles.
This is Justin Unit and it's our kicker.
It can accurately kick the ball between two and 60 feet.
This is one of the most precise robots on our team.
(Celebratory music)
- [Narrator] Notre Dame competes against three other
Midwest colleges in a tournament held each spring,
but it takes a full school year
to prepare for that gauntlet.
In the fall semester, the team recruits new members
and trains them for a one-off scrimmage
with another college's team.
This year, their fall opponent is Valparaiso University,
and they're not leaving anything to chance.
In the week before the game,
they're running practice drills,
they're learning the playbook,
and they're watching tape,
just like any other football team.
- [Brendan] This is basically the culmination
of all this work you've put in in the shop
with these robots, building them,
repairing them, designing them.
And you're going out and basically watching
your engineering put to the test.
Irish on three.
One, two, three.
- [Team] Irish.
(applauding)
(upbeat music)
- [Zoe] The rules of robotic football are very similar
to that of human football, so we follow NCAA rules
to the best of our ability.
There are two 20 minute halves for a game,
with a 10 minute half time,
so it's a very quick-paced game.
(cheering)
- [Team] Yes. There we go.
- [Zoe] These robots take a lot of big hits
(robots crashing)
- We have a backup for every robot,
just in case one breaks down.
(yelling)
- [Announcer] This cannot be good.
- [Zoe] So, if the quarterback breaks down
and we pull it off and put the second-string one in,
and the pit-crew will work on it
and try and fix it as quickly as possible.
(suspenseful music)
- [Narrator] With their starting quarterback back in the game
after a quick medical break, the Robotic Irish
fight to hold their narrow lead but can't score.
A touchdown and an extra point
will snatch victory from Notre Dame.
- [Team] This is the game, this is the game.
Come on, come on, come on, come on.
Got it, got it, got it, got it.
(Cheering)
- [Zoe] The goal of this is to grow it to be a truly
national competition, where we can have
multiple conferences competing for the trophy.
- [Narrator] One day, this could be a real sport,
or maybe it already is.
- [Team] Irish on three.
One, two, three.
Irish.
- [Brendan] This is basically real football,
it's just not humans playing it.
(suspenseful music)