Soccer robot toy within an educational environment

Many autonomous robotic systems exist which are operated using battery powered subsystems. These systems typically suffer from short battery life, due in some part to the weight of the battery required to power them and the need for regular battery changes or recharges. This makes continuous operation difficult, which is desired for an embedded Internet system. A novel solution proposed here is to use a power cage in lieu of a battery, and limit the area the robot can traverse to the dimension of the cage. A prototype of such a system has been designed and successfully tested. The goal of this prototype system is to play a primitive form of Soccer using two SoccerBots under a remote interface controlled by two humans, a ping pong ball and a suitable sized power cage. Preliminary testing indicates that the system is feasible and relatively inexpensive.