Cypress PSoC 3 FirstTouch starter kit selected for 2010 FIRST Robotics Competition

SAN JOSE, USA: Cypress Semiconductor Corp. announced that its PSoC 3 FirstTouch Kit is included in the kit of parts for the 2010 FIRST Robotics Competition.

Cypress has provided over 1,900 customized kits to FIRST for use in building the competitive robots. The student teams are expected to use the kits in the control units of the robots, hooked up through a USB connection to the robot’s netbook computer.

The Cypress PSoC 3 architecture has unique programmable analog and digital peripherals that enable capabilities such as motor control, intelligent power supply and battery management, human interfaces such as CapSense touch sensing, LCD segment display, graphics control, as well as audio/voice processing, communication protocols, and much more.

It is accompanied by the new PSoC Creator Integrated Development Environment, which introduces a unique schematic-based design capture along with fully tested, pre-packaged analog and digital peripherals easily customizable through user-intuitive wizards and APIs to meet specific design requirements. PSoC Creator enables engineers to design the way they think and dramatically shorten time-to-market.

The PSoC 3 FirstTouch Starter Kit (CY8CKIT-003) helps designers get acquainted with the new PSoC 3 architecture. It includes an array of sensors, I/O’s, projects, and software in addition to Serial Wire Debugging (SWD), an accelerometer, a thermistor, proximity sensing, CapSense, a 12-pin wireless module header, and 28 general purpose I/O pins. Customers can order the kit for $49 from Cypress.

“We are excited to participate in this outstanding program,” said Patrick Kane, Cypress’s director of University Relations. “The PSoC platform is absolutely ideal for students because its flexibility and programmability offer the opportunity to quickly implement and test new ideas. We look forward to some amazing robots from the talented and imaginative participants.”