Abstract
The paper describes development of a variable kick mechanism for RoboCup soccer agent. Most robots entering to the middle size league of RoboCup equip a kick mechanism, and many of them mount loop kick device in recent year. The loop kick is not suitable for a short pass though has the ability to score goals. Therefore, various cooperative plays between robots are difficult only for using loop kick. To realize various cooperative strategies, we propose variable kick mechanism. The mechanism changes the contact point with the ball by changing the position of the tiptoe. Then, the trajectory of the ball is changed. Experiments confirmed that both the loop kick and the straight pass were possible by proposed mechanism.
