Then: In July, DARwIn III -- Virginia Tech's "Dynamic Anthropomorphic Robot with Intelligence" -- competed in RoboCup 2008 in Suzhou, China. DARwIn finished 0-3 in the international robotic soccer tournament.

Now: DARwIn showed his versatility by conducting a holiday concert at Tech in December, leading the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra in Leroy Anderson's "Sleigh Ride." He has plans to return to soccer in the summer for RoboCup 2009.

Dennis Hong, director of Tech's Robotics and Mechanisms Laboratory, said there are actually three versions of DARwIn III -- III-A, III-B and III-C. Students worked on one of the robots this year in an effort to make his movements more fluid. The result was DARwIn III-D (the "D" stands for demo).

He made his public debut at the concert.

The students had only two weeks to prepare DARwIn III-D for the concert. They studied the score and worked with Roanoke Symphony Orchestra music director David Stewart Wiley to choreograph DARwIn's movements and record them into a program.

DARwIn was a hit at the concert, and Hong said he's working on technology that will allow the robot to react to the music being played and actually conduct based on the beat of the music.

As for DARwIn's soccer career, Hong said he received an unlucky draw in the 2008 RoboCup, facing top-ranked teams from Japan and Germany in the first round.

Both games ended in 10-0 defeats. But DaRwIn did receive the distinction of playing the longest RoboCup game in history, a 0-0 overtime game against the University of Manitoba that was finally determined by a coin flip. DARwIn lost.

Hong has brought in doctoral students and a post-doctoral student to help the undergraduates create a new and improved soccer-playing version to compete in next year's RoboCup in Austria. DARwIn IV will include a new camera system, "VT Cam" for its eyes.

Unlike his III-D brother, DARwIn IV is about substance, not style.

"DARwIn IV doesn't look cool, but it's all about performance," Hong said.