FIRA Teams,

Together with ROBOTIS, we have arranged for a special promotional offer of the ROBOTIS' DARwIn-OP robot for the FIRA HuroCup United 5 vs 5 soccer competition, which will be held for the first time at FIRA 2012 in Bristol (I hope to see you all there). The rules of the competition are currently being finalized. However, a couple of things have already been decided: (a) the competition is not limited to one robot only (in contrast to the RoboCup Standard Platform League). So custom built or other commercially available humanoid robots will be allowed to play as long as they fit under the FIRA HuroCup rules, (b) teams will be mixed and robots will receive points for each successful action (e.g., touch the ball, score a goal, making a goalie save), and (c) a standard extensible language for communicating between the different robots (probably based on JSON) will be made available soon, so that robots can communicate with each other.

ROBOTIS Special Offer:

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ROBOTIS has kindly agreed to sell the <a href="http://www.ROBOTIS.com/xe/darwin_en"> ROBOTIS DARwIn-OP </a> Academic Edition for a special price to FIRA HuroCup teams. The kit includes a complimentary hard case, 1 yr warranty on replacement parts. ROBOTIS has also agreed to provide on site support at the next three FIRA competitions. The cost of the kit is $9,600 (Excluding shipping and handling charges, taxes, and custom charges). However, for each ROBOTIS DARwIn OP sold under this special agreement, the team will receive $2,000 travel support ($1,000 per year for a maximum of two years) to attend the FIRA HuroCup WorldCup in Bristol and Malaysia. Furthermore, ROBOTIS will make a donation to the FIRA organizers which will allow us to keep the registration fees low. This offer is only available to old and new FIRA teams. Teams that purchase a DARwIn-OP through this offer must be willing and able to perform their own routine maintenance on the robots - the one year warranty only applies to replacement parts that must be shipped with an return merchandise authorization (RMA) number.

So if you have been considering buying a ROBOTIS DARwIn-OP and to participate at FIRA HuroCup, then now would be a good time. The deadline for this special offer is 31st Dec. 2011. Please contact <a mailto:jacky@cs.umanitoba.ca> Jacky Baltes </a> for more information and ordering information. You can also order from ROBOTIS directly via the <a mailto://contactus2@robotis.com> ROBOTIS Special Offer</a>.