Why are RoboCup pitches still small and the play still slow?

Answer

Because the bottleneck today is not algorithmic intelligence — it is physics and mechanical engineering. Three constraints govern pitch size and pace: power drain while maintaining dynamic balance, the difficulty of depth perception and ball tracking across wide open space, and joints and actuators that cannot yet survive high-speed collisions and repeated falls. Widen the pitch today and the batteries die before half-time.