First, a shot.
Then, a bigger game.
Soccer combines movement, ball control and decisions. We begin with one focused task: shooting at goal in a physics simulation.
The longer-term goal is to explore how individual skills can develop into play. This roadmap describes research directions, not a schedule of guaranteed capabilities. The order and scope may change as we learn from the first experiment.
Shooting at Goal Training setup in progress
Learn the movements and ball contact involved in a shot, then measure what happens to the ball. The initial task is deliberately narrow enough to examine through repeated attempts and comparable evaluations.
- Research focus
- Coordinated body movement, contact with the ball, shot direction and measured outcomes at the goal line.
- Training process
- Learn reference movements, continue with ball interaction, then evaluate saved versions separately. These are steps inside Stage 01, not separate soccer roadmap stages.
- Evidence to examine
- Goals and total attempts, goal-line error where recorded, evaluation conditions and checkpoint comparisons. Reward and goal rate are read separately.
- Current state
- The training package is assembled. A GPU run, convergence and connection of the new process to the dashboard have not yet been confirmed.
The dashboard contains 11 checkpoint entries and recordings from an earlier custom experiment. Its completed run and difficulty levels are not evidence that the new pipeline is running or that Stage 01 has been completed.
Make the new process observable.
Before claiming results for the new pipeline, the project needs to establish what is actually running and connect the observations to their source. The following items describe work to verify, not completed milestones.
There is no claimed completion percentage, launch date or automatic guarantee of improvement.
Ball Control Planned
Explore receiving, carrying and maintaining control of the ball. A single contact becomes a sequence of interactions: the robot must keep the ball available for a subsequent action.
- The question
- How can learned movement support repeated ball interaction rather than one isolated shot?
- What needs to be defined
- A dedicated task, its start and termination conditions, evaluation measurements and a baseline. None of these are presented as implemented for this direction yet.
- What is not established
- Reliable receiving, dribbling or possession. The shooting archive does not demonstrate these capabilities.
Passing Planned
Explore directed passes and interaction with a teammate. The research focus expands from producing a shot toward coordinating ball movement with another participant.
- The question
- How could an individual ball skill develop into an interaction that supports a teammate’s next action?
- What needs to be defined
- The partner setup, task conditions and evaluation protocol. Passing requires its own experiment and measurements rather than reusing shooting accuracy as proof.
- What is not established
- Successful passing, teammate coordination or cooperative play in the current experiment.
Game Situations Research direction
Explore choosing actions with respect to the ball, teammates and opponents. This is a broader question than executing a movement: it concerns when and why an action should be taken.
- The question
- How might learned movement and ball skills be combined with decisions in a changing game situation?
- What needs to be defined
- Scenario rules, participants, observations and a suitable evaluation protocol. These depend on research findings and are not fixed commitments.
- What is not established
- Full-match play, strategy, autonomous teamwork or performance against opponents. These are not results of the current shooting task.
Progress in one focused simulation task does not by itself establish general soccer ability or performance on physical hardware.
Let the results set the next question.
A future direction should be described through its own task, measurements and history once it becomes an actual experiment. We will not turn a successful highlight into a claim that a research stage is complete.
- Use comparable repeated evaluations to assess changes between saved versions.
- Keep the evaluation conditions and sample counts visible alongside rates.
- Distinguish goals from balance, reward from accuracy, and a new checkpoint from a better one.
- Mark planned directions as planned until there is evidence for a stronger claim.
- Update the research scope when results suggest a different next step.
A direction we intend to investigate. It is not a shipping promise, a readiness score or an assigned date. Research can improve, stall or reveal that a different approach is needed.