RoboCup 2013 is taking place in Eindhoven, Netherlands and  BotSport TV has posted a "teaser video" that shows a great deal of human enthusiasm - and more Nao robots together in one place than ever before.

With more than 2500 participants from 40 countries, RoboCup is the most important international competition on robotics. This year the event is taking place in Europe and participants have come from countries around the world, including Brazil, China, the USA, Canada, Germany, Mexico, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, South Korea, Italy, Austria, Thailand, Indonesia, Iran, Australia, Japan, the UK, Pakistan, Macau, Singapore, Sweden, France, Croatia, Israel, Slovenia, Taiwan, Romania, Switzerland, Colombia, Chile and India.

The goal of RoboCup has been that by 2050 a team of soccer robots should be able to beat the human world champions. It has now widened its aim, stating it as:

to speed the development of robot technology to serve our ageing population.

Accordingly the event isn't just about soccer playing robots, there are also competitions for service robots, dancing robots and rescue robots.

The RoboCup Rescue League is all about saving people in disaster situations. These robots must be able to locate victims in a simulated disaster area and find out how badly injured they are, while at the same time checking the surrounding area and buildings and then reporting on their findings.

In the RoboCup@Home competition, service robots compete against each other in carrying out everyday household tasks, such as taking spoken orders for drinks and then serving them at the right place. To do this, the robots must be able to understand, recognize and follow people, and they have to be able to pick up the right drink from among many other objects.

During the competition, which started on June 26th RoboCup TV has been covering as many games as possible with a live feed. BotTV, which is using multiple cameras, decided against streaming  live due to the need to choose the best angles and edit the matches with timer, teams and country names. It hopes to have all the matches online before the end of July.

Meanwhile here is the taster from Eindhoven which shows off not only the Robots but also the commitment and enthusiasm of all concerned:

Have you ever seen so many Nao robots!!!

If you want evidence, proof even, that robot competitions are great for technical education and involvement just look at the video a second time and focus on the people rather than the robots. 

The RoboCup 2013 site is available in English and Dutch.