This is a joint project between Buffington Effects and the Robotics Society of America. This kit is designed to expose kids to robots by giving them all of the parts necessary to build a working robot. It comes with a pre-programmed chip so once it is together, it will start going. This is a sumo robot. Sumo robots are somewhat popular in Japan. The idea is the same as normal sumo - push your opponent off of the mat. This robot will drive on any surface that is a solid color. When it encounters a thick line that contrasts with the main surface it will turn around and go in another direction.

On another level, it is a great board to get started with the PIC microcontroller. It has the voltage regulator, a resonator, a decoupling capacitor, a socket for the processor, a PIC16F870 microcontroller, and holes to allow you to attach a RJ11-6 connector for in circuit programming. All of the wiring that you normally have to do to just get the processor to run is already done. Just load your program and connect the I/O pins to your application and you are ready to go.

Documentation available soon