The SpelBots accomplished a tie in the championship match of the RoboCup Japan Open 2009 in Osaka in the Standard Platform League Humanoid (Nao) robot soccer competition on May 7-10, 2009.  The championship against Japan’s Fukuoka Institute of Technology ASURA-FIT team came down to a penalty kick shoot-out with the SpelBots narrowly missing the game winning shot off the goal post.  This was the first time Japan hosted the Standard Platform League Humanoid national open championship using the Nao humanoid, two-legged robots built by Alderbaran Robotics.  The SpelBots had to program the robots using artificial intelligence to play soccer without remote control the same way humans play soccer.

The SpelBots were formed by Dr. Andrew B. Williams in the Fall 2004 when he came to Spelman after reading the Purpose Driven Life.  In 2005, the SpelBots became the first all-women, African American team to compete in the RoboCup four-legged robot soccer competition which is considered the Olympics of robotics and artificial intelligence.  Dr. Williams also founded the ARTSI Alliance, a robotics alliance consisting of thirteen HBCUs and seven research institutions, to increase the number of African American students studying robotics and computer science by offering research and education projects centered around robotics and helathcare, the arts, and entrepreneurship. Dr. Williams recently authored the book,"Out of the Box: Building Robots, Transforming Lives which can be purchased on Amazon.com.