1. WAC FIRA American Cup'98 - Anchorage, Alaska, May 9-14, 1998.

FIRA American Cup will be held in conjunction with World Automation Congress (WAC'98) between May 9 and 14, 1998 at Anchorage, Alaska, USA. Members are invited to participate and present their papers in the same.

For further details, please consult WAC'98 or WAC-FIRA American Cup'98 home pages respectively at and
or send email to:

You can also contact FIRA Head-quarters at KAIST, Tajeon, Korea at:
or



2. AROB Conference at Oita - January 19-21, 1998 and MiroSot.

The 3rd International Symposium on Artificial Life and Robotics (AROB III'98) Jan 19-21, 1998 will be held at B-Con Plaza, Beppu, Oita, Japan. Micro-Roobt World Cup Soccer Tournament (MiroSot) is included as a topic in this conference. Members are requested to submit papers on MiroSot to the same. The deadline for submission
f a 400-600 word-long abstract is August 1, 1997.

Please contact Prof. Masanori Sugisaka at or visit for further details.



3. MiroSot American and European Tour - Itinerary.

MiroSot American and European Tours will be held in early August and September respectively to popularize FIRA and its activities. This is aimed to give a boost to FIRA Robot World Cup98 in Paris. Demonstrations will be organized for general public and children also. Meetings with local media persons are also being arranged. If possible make yourself available at any of the places nearest to you.

MiroSot American Tour: August 03-23, 1997
----------------------------------------------------
Dates Place Contact Person
----------------------------------------------------
03-07 USA Prof. M.A.Soderstrand
(Sacramento)
07-09 USA Prof. J. Wang
(LA)
09-16 Brazil Dr. Roberto Filho
(Sao Paolo,
Rio and Prof. V. Romano
Campinas)
16-20 Mexico Prof. B.C. Toledo
(Guadalajaha)
20-23 Canada Prof. Shahram Payandeh
(Vancouver)


MiroSot European Tour: September 07-20, 1997
------------------------------------------------------
Dates Place Contact Person
------------------------------------------------------
07-10 Spain Prof. J.L. Rosa
(Girona)
10-12 Austria Prof. Kopacek, Dr. M.-W. HAN
(Vienna)
12-14 Italy Prof. Paolo Dario
(Pisa)
14-17 Germany Prof. B. Borovac
(Bremen)
17-20 U.K. Prof. J. Johnson
(Milton Keynes)



4. MiroSot'97 Videotapes and Proceedings.

MiroSot'97 Videotapes and Proceedings are available now. We will be dispatching the same soon to the concerned. If anybody wishes to have them please contact at or .



5. MiroSot Game Rules - Modifications.

5.1. It is recomended to have the following changes with regard to the goal area and the center of the playground.

a) The goal width will be 35 cm (against 30 cm at present) with a goalie area of 60 cm X 15 cm in front of the goal. Failing to kick the ball out of goal area within 10 seconds (introduced in MiroSot'97), will be penalized by giving a penalty kick to the opposite team.

Intentional blocking of the goalie in the goal area will be penalized by giving a goal kick to the team of the goalie.

b) An arc (20 cm along the goal line and 5 cm in perpendicular to goal area), will be included so as to fix rules regarding goal kick and the ball position during the
same. So during goal kick the goalie must kick the ball, kept within this arc, out.

5.2. A centre circle with radius 10 cm will be included. At the begining of the game the ball should be kept within this circle and the ball should be kicked towards one's own area. Failing which a goal kick will be given to the opposite team.

5.3. The major lines and arcs (centre line, goal area border lines, centre circle, arc just in front of goal area) will be marked with 3mm white lines. The grid lines will be drawn in dark with 1 mm thickness.



6. Information on Robots: Hardware and Software.

Recently, FIRA headquarters at KAIST received many requests in connection with procuring micro-robot parts and related software. For your kind information we wish to let you know that, you will be able to get the needed parts for micro-robots, vision boards and software directly from The Micro Adventure Company, Taejon, Korea. Those who wish to get the same are requested to contact them directly at
, Tel:+82-42-864-0307, 0308, Fax: +82-42-864-0309.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
FEDERATION OF INTERNATIONAL ROBOT-SOCCER ASSOCIATION
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Publisher: Zeungnam Bien Editor-in-Chief: Jong-Hwan Kim
President, FIRA General Secretary, FIRA
Associate Editor: Prahlad Vadakkepat

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
WWW: http://www.mirosot.org/, http://www.fira.net/
Email: fira@fira.net, mirosot@vivaldi.kaist.ac.kr

[July 28, 1997]