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As part of its makers initiative, iCog Labs propose its first community based project called ‘the iCog Makes Robo-soccer Competition’. Initially, it will use a low cost humanoid robot called RoboSapien. The RoboSapien is a humanoid robot designed by Mark W. Tilden, and marketed by WowWee for the toy market. Yet, contestants that prefer other kind of robots are also allowed to compete in the cup if their robots match the specifications described in the next section.

So far, the iCog Makers Initiative has a signed agreement with five of Ethiopian Universities namely Addis Ababa Institute of Technology(AAiT), Addis Ababa Science and Technology University, Mekelle University, Bahir Dar University, and Addis Ababa University College of Natural and Computational Sciences Arat Kilo Campus. Students from all these campuses are heading to the first National Robo-Soccer Cup in Ethiopia.

Opening in few weeks later, hundreds of students from 5 universities will ascend on the task of hacking and programming humanoid robots for their shot at the coveted cup. The core idea of the competition is to create a robot system that can play football. But students are also going to hack the hardware or the robots or they can also design their own robot (as long as their design is in accord with the rules and regulations.

Team formation is as follows One team leader (can be from any department or can be a teacher) 2 students from Mechanical School 2 students from Electrical School 2 students from computer engineering (or related departments) P.s this is the minimum requirement for team formation but students can form a team exceeding this number.

After five months of development, teams will be allotted in group knockout stages and their robots will play the actual soccer. The top two teams from each universities will be selected to play in the national cap representing their universities.