Team Magma is heading to the RoboCup as one of the favorites  

Following some impressive performances during the preseason, the team will head to Incheon, South Korea, on Sunday, June 28.

25.06.2026 · Pressemitteilung – Magma · Editorial Office: jd

Three men and a woman are standing next to each other; the woman is holding a small robot in her hands
Four of the six team members traveling with the group (from left): Sascha Schrempp, Klaus Dorer, Madhurshalini Mahalingam, and Hannes Braun with one of the Nao robots that were previously simulated; Mike Benz and Simon Rösch are missing from the photo.

While the Men’s World Cup in Mexico, Canada, and the U.S. is already at halftime, the Magma team from Hochschule Offenburg is just setting out on its quest for the title: The RoboCup, the world championship for soccer-playing robots, will take place this year from June 30 to July 6 in South Korea. And so, team leader Prof. Klaus Dorer, Communication and Media Engineering student Madhurshalini Mahalingam, Angewandte Künstliche Intelligenz students Mike Benz and Sascha Schrempp, doctoral candidate Hannes Braun, and staff member Simon Rösch will travel on Sunday, June 28, to the Asian country’s third-largest city, the port and industrial city of Incheon on the northwest coast. Thanks to their impressive performance during the preparatory phase, they are the favorites in the 3D Simulation League, but they also have respect for the numerous changes and the consequently still unknown capabilities of the Chinese teams.

This is the first time the new Mujoco simulator is being used at RoboCup: It is significantly more physically realistic and now features Booster’s humanoid T1 robots instead of Nao robots. “That’s why we had to relearn everything: running, kicking, standing up,” emphasizes Klaus Dorer. However, the Mujoco simulator was developed by Stefan Glaser, an employee at Hochschule Offenburg and a member of Magma. “So when we ran into problems during training, we could quickly check in with him. In addition, Team Sweaty has been using real T1 robots for some time now, and we were able to directly adopt their walking capabilities,” the team leader continues. Both approaches have already paid off in the preparatory tournaments: In the fall of 2025, Team Magma won a demo tournament at the Brazil Open. And at Robotica 2026 in Barcelos, Portugal, they ended up with a total of eleven wins and a 40–0 goal differential. In the final, Magma’s simulated soccer robots even won decisively, 4–0, against the reigning world champion, FC Portugal. “The Chinese teams weren’t there yet, though,” says Klaus Dorer, trying to temper expectations somewhat. Since many of them could also draw on experience with humanoid robots, it remains to be seen how they’ll perform in the new simulation. “But we haven’t shown everything we’ve got at Robotica yet,” the team leader says optimistically.

So let’s keep our fingers crossed that Team Magma will finally take home the trophy this time after eight consecutive runner-up finishes. The matches are played in real time—though currently still seven-on-seven on the corresponding FIFA field, rather than eleven-on-eleven as before. Multiple robots can now make contact with the ball without any of them being sent off. And the goalkeeper currently cannot catch the ball, but can only kick it away like a field player.

Anyone interested can follow the progress of this year’s RoboCup—just like team members Simon Palewicz and Adrian Schade, who are cheering from Offenburg—through the daily updates on Team Magma’s website and via the links to the live broadcast posted there.

About RoboCup

The RoboCup is one of the world’s largest competitions for autonomous robots. As a major technology event in the fields of research and teaching, it has been held annually at various venues since 1997. More than 2,000 participants from around the world take part in the multi-day tournament, which includes a conference and academic publications. The competition is held in various categories: RoboCupJunior, RoboCupIndustrial, RoboCup@Home, RoboCupRescue, and RoboCupSoccer. Only in the RoboCupSoccer category do machines compete that stand on two legs like humans. The vision is that by 2050, robots will have advanced enough to compete against—and even defeat—the reigning soccer world champions.