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We describe the motivations, research issues, current results, and future directions of The Ulm Sparrows, a project that aims at the design and implementation of a team of robotic soccer players. Motivation and Research GoalsEngineering a team of robotic soccer players that is able to successfully compete in championship games requires truely interdisciplinary research a n d the e ective cooperation of many disciplines. This is our main scienti c reason for setting up a local research e ort related to RoboCup and to implement The Ulm Sparrows, a team of soccer agents that is currently projected to participate both in the mid-size real robot league as well as the simulation league. A secondary reason is the coincidence of RoboCup research issues 1] with midterm research goals of SMART 2] 1 , a local, large, interdisciplinary joint research project that aims at the development of a complete cognitive a r c hitecture for an adaptive robotic agent performing complex tasks. Not the least reasons for starting RoboCup activities were their attractiveness to students and its potential for appealing educational activities.Considering the wide variety of elds involved with RoboCup, no single group or team can equally well address all research issues of interest. In order to ensure high-quality research results, both a long-term commitment to RoboCup activities and a well-focused research a g e n d a are essential. For our team, the following open research issues are of particular interest: Learning elementary football skills from demonstration, by reinforcement o r t e a c hing, Spatial Modeling of highly dynamic environments including their rapid update by sensor 1 See www.uni-ulm.de/SMART/ for more information.