Barelang FC Polibatam Wins 2nd Place in the Best Custom Humanoid Robot Award at RoboCup 2026 in Korea
BATAM – Barelang FC, the proud robotics team of Politeknik Negeri Batam, has once again achieved an outstanding accomplishment on the global stage. At RoboCup 2026, held in South Korea, Barelang FC secured 2nd place in the world in the Best Custom Humanoid Robot Award category.
RoboCup is one of the world’s most prestigious international robotics competitions, bringing together top teams from various countries. In the humanoid robot soccer Small Division, this year’s competition was participated in by 25 international teams, including delegations from China, Germany, South Korea, Indonesia, Mexico, Brazil, Australia, and Colombia.
Barelang FC began its journey in the Seeding Round. In the opening match, the Polibatam team faced Mountain from China and managed to hold the opponent to a 0–0 draw. This result brought Barelang FC to the Play-In Knockout Stage, where they competed against I-Kid from China. Although the team had to concede defeat, Barelang FC successfully finished among the world’s top 9–12 teams in the final tournament standings.
The team’s most remarkable achievement came in the Best Custom Humanoid Robot Award category, an award given to teams capable of independently designing and building their own humanoid robots. Among the global participants, only four teams were nominated for this prestigious category: HERoEHS from South Korea, Mobilio-ZETIN from South Korea, Barelang FC from Indonesia, and ICHIRO ITS from Indonesia.
Through the official voting process by Team Leaders, Barelang FC successfully earned 2nd place in the world, finishing behind HERoEHS as the first-place winner and ahead of ICHIRO ITS, which placed third.
In addition, Barelang FC’s artificial intelligence-based software research innovation also received international recognition. In the Open Research Challenge scientific sub-competition, Barelang FC ranked 5th in the world through its presentation titled “Autonomous Edge-AI Goal-Line Detector with Direct GameController Integration.” This innovation showcased the application of edge-AI to autonomously detect goal lines and integrate directly with the GameController system in real time.
The Director of Polibatam, Bambang Hendrawan, expressed his appreciation for this achievement. According to him, Barelang FC’s accomplishment proves that vocational education is capable of producing technological innovations that are relevant and competitive at the global level.
“Congratulations to the Barelang FC Team for this outstanding achievement at RoboCup 2026 in Korea. This accomplishment shows that Polibatam students are not only able to compete, but also capable of presenting robotics innovations that are recognized internationally. This is a source of pride for Polibatam and Indonesia,” said Bambang Hendrawan.
The Vice Director III of Polibatam, Muhammad Zaenuddin, also extended his appreciation to the entire team, supervising lecturers, and all parties who supported Barelang FC’s journey.
“Thank you to the Barelang FC Team, the supervising lecturers, and everyone who supported the preparation and participation in this competition. May this achievement become a motivation for Polibatam students to continue creating, innovating, and bringing the name of the campus and Indonesia to the international stage,” said Muhammad Zaenuddin.
Barelang FC’s success in South Korea is a clear reflection that Polibatam’s research ecosystem, project-based learning, and students’ dedication are able to produce robotics innovations aligned with global technological developments. Polibatam hopes this achievement will become new energy to strengthen research, collaboration, and student accomplishments in the future.
Greetings from Polibatam!
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