HE SHOOTS, HE SCORES

From Issue 56 you can really start playing with the big boys as we start to kit Cybot out with the technology it needs to play Cyball a clever, soccer-style, interactive game.

Across the world, teams of scientists and engineers are working towards a common aim building a team of independent robot soccer players capable of beating the human World Cup soccer champions within the next 45 years! Currently, most of the competitions take place between small- and medium-sized robots (about the
same size as Cybot) as the boffins try to
work out clever strategies for beating
the opposition.

Now you have the opportunity to get involved by
installing Cybot with sophisticated technology for
locating and tracking other robots and objects, and programming it with your very own
world-beating game plan!

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BALL CONTROL BUMPER
Cybot will get two projecting arms, attached to a new front bumper that houses a new, roller-ball castor to enable Cybot to make rapid and smooth direction changes. The arms are used to catch but not trap a special ball, guiding it towards a flipper mechanism mounted between the arms. Once the ball is detected by the switches on the front of the robot, the flipper can be used to fire the ball at the goal. The arms can also be used to detect if another robot is tackling you if playing against one or more opponents.

IR lOCALIZATION SYSTEM
This allows Cybot to track special infrared beacons. These are supplied in two forms as tagging devices that can be attached to almost anything, and in a special 7cm-diameter Cyball. Later youll be able to mount a beacon on top of Cybot so it too can be found and tracked. Infrared receiver modules are mounted on the front of each arm, allowing the robot to detect the strength and direction of a signal being sent from any one of up to eight beacons.

A SPECIAL GOAL
This will have an IR tag clipped to the top bar and a battery pack clipped to the base at the rear to keep the structure stable.

A CD-ROM
Design your own soccer control programs with the help of another great CD-ROM for your Windows PC. A soccer simulator is provided to test out your programs on screen.

BUT WHAT IF YOU DON'T LIKE SOCCER?
Dont worry you can use all this exciting technology in other ways. From within Programmer 03, Cybot can be made to interact with any objects not just the Cyball however you like!