Robot Footballer

You will do doubt have seen pictures from ‘RoboCup’ showing robots booting footballs from one end of the pitch to the other. Building an electromechanical robot like this is entirely within the capability of the hobbyist with the help of a few cheap everyday items.

In order to give the ball a good kick the robot’s feet are powered by linear solenoids. Acceleration is more important than force, however, and so we eschew readily-available solenoids which generally operate on 12 V or 24 V and which, although powerful, are much too slow for our purposes.