RoboCup meets luxury:
Luxury fashion designer Louis Vuitton puts the “cup” in RoboCup

A designer glass cup for the winners of the RoboCup 2009

Luxury accessories, prêt-à-porter and expensive leather bags with the world-famous LV emblem – you would think the French luxury company would be far removed from the world of robotics. But it’s a well known fact that opposites attract, and so it is the tradition-conscious French company which was responsible for the design of the much-coveted RoboCup – the “Louis Vuitton Humanoid Cup”. The trophy will be presented to the overall best team in the humanoid league in the football competition at the end of the robotics world championships. And of course, as befitting its rank, the glass challenge cup is embedded in an appropriate red-lined Louis Vuitton miniature case, and this fact alone should raise the pulses of fashion fans. But not only followers of fashion will be spellbound. The world championships of intelligent autonomous robots hosted by TU Graz will be wowing visitors in the Graz Stadthalle from 29th June to 5th July with robots that play football, save lives, dance and even clean – the luxury cup is “just” the icing on the cake.

A glass cup travels the world

The first “Louis Vuitton Humanoid Cup” was presented in Fukuoka, Japan, in 2002, to that year’s winning team in the RoboCup soccer humanoid league. Since then the glass cup has been travelling the world, and will be handed over to the winners of the humanoid league in robot footie every year till 2050. As with previous RoboCup host countries Japan, Italy, Portugal, Germany and USA, the designer cup will provide the crowning touch of glamour at the award ceremony at RoboCup 2009 in Graz.