1. FIRA Robot World Cup France'98 Schedule.

June 29-30: For setting up, training and workshop.
July 01-03: Competitions (NaroSot, MiroSot and S-MiroSot)
and benchmark problems.

FIRA Regional Championships:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
FIRA European Cup: 1998 April 25-26, at Technical University of Vienna, Austria.
Contact: Kopacek@ihrt1.ihrt.tuwien.ac.at,
fira@fira.net

FIRA American Cup: 1998 May 09-14 in conjunction with WAC at Alaska.
http://ace.unm.edu/wac98/waccup
Contact: waccup@eece.unm.edu,
fira@fira.net

FIRA South American Cup: 1998 May 20-22, Campinas, Brazil
Contact: tavares@trellis.ia.cti.br,
fira@fira.net

FIRA Asia-Pacific Cup: 1998 May 29-31 at KAIST, Taejon, Korea.
Contact: mirosot@vivaldi.kaist.ac.kr,
fira@fira.net



2. NaroSot Rules for FIRA Robot World Cup France'98.

With regard to NaroSot for the FIRA Robot World Cup France'98, the following points are brought to your kind information:

* We received quite a few queries with regard to NaroSot robot size. Though we wanted to have the size within 3.75 cm cubic, many report that, in order to accomodate the readily available rechargable batteries, the hieght of the NaroSot robots is coming to more than 5cm. So we feel we can have NaroSot robots sized at 4 cm X 4 cm X 5.5 cm (height 5.5 cm).

* As we use the same playground as that of the MiroSot for NaroSot, we can have 3 to 5 NaroSot robots in a game.

* We will use a ping pong ORANGE ball in NaroSot.

* The rules of NaroSot will be similar to those of MiroSot, except for the size of robots. The rules for the same will be available at our website soon.



3. FIRA Benchmark Problems for Robot World Cup France'98.

A series of benchmark problems will be considered for the FIRA Robot World Cup France'98 event, suggested by Peppluis Rosa and formulated by Jeffrey Johnson. The benchmark problems include:

* Fundamental Motion of Robot Football, to gauge how well robots move from one position to another,
* Ball Striking Task, to move the robot from a position to strike a stationary ball,
* Ball-passing Task, to strike a stationary ball and to pass it to another robot,
* Moving Ball-striking Task, to strike a moving ball and to make it to move through a defined point,
* Passing a Moving Ball, to strike a moving ball and to pass it to another and,
* Dribbling the Ball Through Osbtacles, to push the ball through a series of obstacles.

Please contact Professor Jeffrey Johnson or Professor B. K. Kim .



4. Early Registration: FIRA Robot World Cup France'98.

Participants for the FIRA Robot World Cup France'98 are requested to contact at the earliest. This will help us to get an idea on the number of possible participants to book the rooms in Paris soon.

Though 20 teams (MiroSot and NaroSot) will be selected for the 1998 event, those who wish to participate, regardless of the outcome of the FIRA Regional Championships, are welcome to the event.




5. Blocking of Tickets to Paris.

Participants for the FIRA Robot World Cup France'98 are requested to block your flight tickets at the earliest. This is in view of the heavy rush to Paris for the FIFA Event then.



6. Sponsors for FIRA Robot World Cup France'98

Sponsorships from different quarters are required for the Paris event. Those who can mobilize the same are requested to contact the head-quarters.




7. Special Issue of Robotics and Autonomous Systems.

The Jornal of Robotics and Autonomous Systems (Elsevier, Vol. 21, No. 2, September 10, 1997) published a special issue on MiroSot, edited by Professor Jong-Hwan Kim. This contains selected papers from the MiroSot'96 workshop. The Editor-in-Chief of this journal is Prof. F.C.A. Groen, who is a FIRA Executive Committee Member.




8. Keynote Speeches on FIRA at WAC, Alaska.

Professor Zeungnam Bien and Professor Jong-Hwan Kim are invited to deliver keynote talks on FIRA in connection with the World Automaiton Congress (WAC), Alaska. FIRA American Championships will be held along with the same.



9. Visitors to FIRA Head-quarters

Recently many Professors and Scientists visited the FIRA head-quarters and MiroSot demonstration games were arranged for them. The visitors include, Professors and Scientists from China, Singapore, United Kingdom and Vietnam.

China : Harbin Institute of Technology and Shanghai Jiao Tong University.
Singapore: Nanyang Technical University and Telecommunications Authority of Singapore.
UK : The University of Sheffield.
Vietnam : National Centre for Natural Science and Technology of Vietnam.

FIRA Vice-President, Professor Kopacek will lead a team from Technical University of Vienna and will visit FIRA head-quarters on November 24-25.



10. Internet Robot Magazine in Print.

The first hardcopy of the Internet based Robot-Mag will hit the stands with a new name 'Robot Science & Technology Magazine', by the end of 1997 and will carry a detailed article on MiroSot and FIRA.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
FEDERATION OF INTERNATIONAL ROBOT-SOCCER ASSOCIATION
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Publisher: Zeungnam Bien Editor-in-Chief: Jong-Hwan Kim
(President, FIRA) (General Secretary, FIRA)
Associate Editors:
Chao Cheng Holger Haas Jeffrey Johnson
Krzysztof R. Kozlowski Amitabha Mukerjee Luca Odetti
Victor Romano Castillo Toledo Andon Topalov
Prahlad Vadakkepat Jing Wang

Dept. of Electrical Engineering, KAIST
373-1 Kusong-dong, Yusong-gu
Taejon 305-701, Korea
Tel: +82-42-869-8048
Fax: +82-42-869-8010
Email: fira@fira.net, mirosot@vivaldi.kaist.ac.kr
WWW: http://www.fira.net/

[November 15, 1997]
You would..
http://fira.net/?document_srl=1724
(*.248.151.81)