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NIST Museum & Archives

The World's Smallest Soccer Stadium: Nano Robots Take the Field

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World's Smallest Soccer Field Exhibit: Nano Robots Take the Field exhibit title thumbnail

Nanosoccer: A Closer Look at the Playing Field

Photograph of nanosoccer device.
Nanosoccer device
Credit: NIST Museum Collection

Look through the glass window of the nanosoccer device depicted on the left and you will see a gold-colored microchip (detail image below) divided into four rectangular sections, each the size of a grain of rice. These are the “playing fields” for robots the size of dust mites that can maneuver a “soccer ball” (a 50 µm diameter plastic sphere) no wider than a human hair. Viewed under a microscope, the robots are operated by remote control and moved in response to changing magnetic fields or electrical signals transmitted across the micro-sized arena. 

The glass microchip on the left measures 3 centimeters across—slightly more than the diameter of a quarter on the right—and is divided into four nanosoccer playing fields.
The glass microchip on the left measures 3 centimeters across—slightly more than the diameter of a quarter on the right—and is divided into four nanosoccer playing fields.

Nano Robotics Competition

“Nanosoccer” competitions, staged by NIST from 2007-2009 allowed engineers from academia and industry to test their robots’ agility, maneuverability, response to computer control, and the ability to move objects—all skills that future industrial micro-bots will need for tasks such as microsurgery within the human body or the manufacture of tiny components for microscopic electronic devices.

Nanosoccer Field of Play
A microrobot used at the RoboCup 2009 nanosoccer competition by the team from Switzerland's ETH Zurich is compared in size to the head of a fruit fly.
A microrobot used at the RoboCup 2009 nanosoccer competition by the team from Switzerland's ETH Zurich is compared in size to the head of a fruit fly. The robot, which is operated under a microscope, is 300 micrometers in length or slightly larger than a dust mite.
Credit: ETH Zurich
Bend It Like NIST: Tiny Soccer Players Pave Way for Microrobots
Bend It Like NIST: Tiny Soccer Players Pave Way for Microrobots
Imagine a robotic David Beckham six times smaller than an amoeba playing with a "soccer ball" no wider than a human hair ... with all of the action happening on a field the size of single grain of rice. It may sound like the stuff of science fiction but at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), nanosoccer is serious business.

Nanotechnology at NIST

NIST continues to conduct numerous research projects on nanotechnologies.

Visit the NIST and Nanosoccer website to learn more about nano robots at NIST and the 2007 - 2009 competitions. 

Example of how to reference this exhibit:

NIST Museum. 2024. World's Smallest Soccer Stadium: Nano Robots Take the Field. Gaithersburg, MD: National Institute of Standards and Technology. Online: https://www.nist.gov/nist-museum/worlds-smallest-soccer-stadium-nano-robots-take-field.

Author. Year. Exhibit Name. Place published: Publisher. Online. URL.

Created April 10, 2023, Updated March 15, 2024