Abstract-Much of robotics research is carried out using either PICs and processors that are a decade or more out of date The alternative is custom built electronics that is expensive and/or must be reinvented every time a new project is begun. The XBC is a new design for a robot controller merging a modern ARM processor with an FPGA that allows high performance -especially in vision processing and motor control -for a cost similar to controllers with a fraction of its capabilities. Additionally, the XBC uses a new, and still free, software development system, already in wide use. The XBC is being mass produced (at least in research hardware terms) so it is readily available and does not require computer hardware or electronics skills in order to be obtained. This paper describes the system, its capabilities and some potential applications.Index Terms-robot controller, back-emf, color tracking, robot programming environment I. THE XBC/IC SYSTEM For the past half-century, Moore's law has described how general purpose computing has risen in capability while the cost has declined. Along with those changes, advances in operating systems, graphics and user interfaces have lowered the technical barrier for entry to the point where more households in the US have computers than do not [2].However, this has not been the trend for robotics in the hobbyist and research market. As general purpose machines have advanced, their ability to interface to the physical world in a straightforward manner has often declined. While the number of embedded processors has skyrocketed in recent years [12], the equipment, software and required knowledge for entry into using those processors has also skyrocketed. The robot controllers powering most homebrew robots ten years ago (the Basic STAMP [3] and the Handy Board [7]) are still the controllers for many robots today, and have been displaced in numbers only by the RCX [9] -which while easy to use, has fewer practical capabilities than the systems it displaces.The XBC/IC system (see Figure 1) is an easy to use lowcost general purpose robot controller. The system provides powerful hardware (an FPGA linked to a commodity ARM processor) combined with the easy to use and very popular Interactive C programming environment. The resulting system has vision, control and interface capabilities that far exceed previous robot controllers for this market. The XBC uses Interactive C, the easy to use C programming environment already used by tens of thousands of robotics * This work was supported in part by the KISS Institute for Practical Robotics researchers, students and hobbyists. Together, the XBC and IC allow easy entry into advanced robotics applications. II. THE XBC HARDWAREThe XBC's unique hardware uses a Gameboy Advance (GBA) as the main processor. We chose the GBA because of its powerful industry-standard ARM processor, integrated TFT color display, low cost and widespread availability.The GBA also adds a certain "fun" element to an educational robotics platform. The XBC employs custom robot...