NEWS: DeepMind teaches robots to play soccer. In a paper released today Google's DeepMind details how they used Deep Reinforcement Learning (Deep RL) to train low-cost, miniature humanoid robots in dynamic environments, allowing them to play a simplified one-versus-one (1v1) soccer game. The robots, equipped with 20 actuated joints, were initially trained in simulation using the MuJoCo physics engine. Through this training, they learned robust and dynamic movement skills like rapid fall recovery, walking, turning, and kicking. The robots seamlessly transitioned between these skills, even surpassing expectations, and developed a basic strategic understanding of the game. During matches, the trained robots demonstrated agile skills such as turning, kicking moving balls, and dynamic defensive blocking. They quickly combined these skills, showcasing their adaptability and outperforming scripted baselines. The robots walked faster, got up quicker, and kicked faster than their counterparts. Individual skills were first trained in isolation within the simulation environment, and then composed in a self-play setting. The robots successfully transferred these skills to real-world scenarios. Full paper can be found here: arxiv.org/pdf/2304.13653.pdf