Our goal was to build a soccer playing robot. The robot had to be built according to the rules of the Robocup Junior challenge and the field was also the same. But the biggest different was, that unlike the Robocup Junior, we were not allowed to use packages like Lego Mindstorms. We had to build our robot completely from scratch, pick and order our sensors and program the microchip all by ourselves.

The game is a one on one soccer match, played with a ball sending out infrared-radiation (to make it easier to detect the ball). The field has a gray gradient ranging from white to black. This makes it possible to determine the position and the orientation of the robot on the field with 3 light sensors. Switches, placed on the outer surface of the robot, could detect the borders of the field. By use of a switch, the team leader can choose, whether white or black is the home goal. The team leader should also be able to start and stop the robot with a switch. The maximum size of the robot is described in the official game regulation, which can be downloaded here.

Available components
For the realisation of the robot, we could use the following components:

• PIC microcontroller
• Dual H-Bridge
• 2 DC electro motors
• Switches and light sensors could be chosen freely from the RS-catalogus

With one flashing LED, we had to show that the program was still running. Control LED’s could be chosen freely. The PIC controller and the electronics are soldered on PCB’s. The PCB’s were designed in a program called Traxmaker.
The structure of the robot was designed in Inventor and printed with the 3D-printer. (Rapid Prototyping machine)