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The “Robot Kit” Contest is open to residents of the 50 United States, Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico, and Canada (excluding Quebec), who are at least 18 years of age. Employees and their immediate families (spouse, parents, children, siblings, and their respective spouses), including household members of Popular Science magazine, Time4 Media, Time Inc., and their respective parent companies, affiliates, subsidiaries, divisions, and advertising and promotion agencies are not eligible to enter or win.

If you've ever thought it'd be cool to make your own robot but didn't because your options were Legos (ho-hum) or fabricating one from scratch (who's got the time?), listen up: RadioShack's new Vex Robotics Design System (vexrobotics.com) is the ultimate compromise. The $300 kit contains more than 500 parts, including steel plates, motors, radio receivers and a six-channel remote. What to build? That's up to you.

Accompanying the Vex Robotics kit, featured in this month’s What’s New section [page 24], is the Vex Robotics Design System’s Inventor’s Guide. The guide is more than just a stapled pamphlet with instructions on how to build a cookie-cutter robot. It introduces and explains basic engineering concepts relating to the Vex system, penned under direction from the Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute.