Hong, who oversees a robot-focused research lab named RoMeLa, has attended RoboCup since 2007.

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Rather than the World Cup, this is the RoboCup US Open held this week in Georgia.

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The catalyst is RoboCup, an international robotics competition that hosts an annual series of soccer games.

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Hong says RoboCup teaches students about machine design and fabrication, as well as mechanics, dynamics and controls.

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The team swept RoboCup for five times in a row, from 2004 to 2008, before taking a break.

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Majid Gholipour, professor of the Mechatronic Centre at Iran's Azad University of Ghazin claims that the Robocup is a much friendlier version of the game than human football.

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First established in 1997 in Nagoya, Japan, RoboCup pits robots from around the world in contests of skill including their capacity to provide disaster management and assisted living services.

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"When we were doing RoboCup (an international robotics competition) it did not enter my mind that the learnings I would take from my students I had trained could be used to build a company like Kiva Systems, " he says.

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