It’s that time again, RoboCup is starting. This year, our club has made the long journey to Incheon – Korea. Fortunately, we had hardly any problems with the security and weight checks for our robot cases during the trip. So we arrived safely at Seoul airport and subsequently at our hotel in Incheon. As they do every year, our board members found a great hotel where we could work on the robots, divided into our subteams, right up until the first day at the venue. We often joke that the hotel staff who take care of our rooms must find the strangest things in there. After all, how often do you take a Dremel or a soldering station with you on a trip…

Yesterday, Tuesday, was the first day we were allowed into the event hall. However, the fields could not yet be used for testing, as the field lines still had to be painted on. The smell of the paint was terrible; fortunately, the fields were finished by Wednesday and the air is already better.

The first test slots on the fields as well as the referee training could therefore only take place today, Wednesday. We took the opportunity to already book and utilize several time slots on the field. Anyone who knows our club knows that every now and then, there are fires to put out in multiple places. The only important thing is that all fires are extinguished before the first game.

So, for today’s friendly match at 9:00 PM local time, motivated work is happening in various areas. Since we will be leaving the hall late in the evening due to the friendly match, the question arises as to what we can have for dinner. This year, unlike in previous years, there are not only banners in the hall pointing out various nearby restaurants, but even a supermarket and several restaurants within the event building itself.

Apart from today’s test match, we are looking forward to an eventful first match day tomorrow, with our first official game at 11:30 AM local time (4:30 AM in Germany). There will be a livestream again this year, but many of the games here take place in the morning, meaning they fall at rather inconvenient hours for German time. We naturally hope that more German spectators will tune in for the games scheduled at more favorable times.