Web Soccer Monitor: An Open-Source 2D Soccer Simulation Monitor for the Web and the Foundation for a New Ecosystem

Abstract

The 2D Simulation League (SIM2D) is one of the most accessible RoboCup leagues, since there are no hardware costs included, and codebases from which you can build a new team are readily available for free. The league, however, still has a notable barrier of entry: its setup. The setup process for the SIM2D environment can be daunting for newcomers, especially for people new to programming or that don’t have access to a linux based distro. In this sense, if there is interest in lowering the barrier of entry of the SIM2D league, and with it, of robotics in general, it would be helpful to have tools with minimal setup, or that don’t require any setup at all. This article reports on an Open-Source monitor for SIM2D games, “Web Soccer Monitor”, that runs entirely on the browser and doesn’t require a setup to function. It is useful in itself as it simplifies the experience of utilizing a monitor from the user’s perspective, while also providing developers with a more modern and agile framework in which to implement new features, but it also serves as the foundation in which the RoboCup community can start building an entire ecosystem of SIM2D web tools, which would lower even more the barrier of entry and would, among other things, facilitate the creation of new categories, such as a fully-fledged SIM2D Junior League.