RoCKIn Competition 2014 - Call for Participation

[RoCKIn Robot]

Call for Participation - Intention to Participate

RoCKIn Competition 2014, November 26-30, 2014 (European Robotics Week)

Cité de L’Espace, Toulouse

RoCKIn is short for “Robot Competitions Kick Innovation in Cognitive Systems and Robotics” and it is an EU-funded Coordination Action aiming at the promotion of research and education in Robotics through competitions (http://rockinrobotchallenge.eu).
After a successful sequence of two preparatory Camps where more than 70 students did their first steps towards building a team, RoCKIn is now announcing the RoCKIn Competition 2014, to be held in Toulouse in the mind-blowing spaces of the science museum "La Cité de L’Espace” (http://www.cite-espace.com/en), November 26-30, 2014.
RoCKIn addresses two challenges — RoCKIn@Home and RoCKIn@Work — that take inspiration from the corresponding RoboCup competitions, but focus on benchmarking and networked robot systems. Both challenges require basic navigation capabilities for mobile platforms, advanced (possibly distributed) perception, manipulation and human-robot interaction. RoCKIn@Home focuses on tasks that service robots execute in a real home environment, while the tasks to be performed in RoCKIn@Work target an industrial automation scenario. There will be two competition events during the project lifetime, both during the European Robotics Week, in November 2014 (Toulouse) and 2015 (Lisbon).
The initial details of the two competitions that will materialize the two challenges in the 2014 edition are available at http://rockinrobotchallenge.eu/rockin_work_nutshell.pdf and http://rockinrobotchallenge.eu/rockin_home_nutshell.pdf. The rulebook for both competitions will be available April 1st, 2014.
The full schedule for the registration and qualification process for RoCKIn Competition 2014 is as follows:

Schedule
- Rulebook online: 01 April 2014
- Intention to participate deadline: 15 April 2014 (see below)
- Application deadline: 09 May 2014 (for all teams, even if no intention to participate was declared)
- Decision on Qualified Teams: 31 May 2014
- Registration open: 01 June 2014 - 1 July 2014 (for the qualified teams only)

Intention to Participate
All teams interested to participate in RoCKIn Competition 2014 are invited to declare such intention from now up to April 1st, 2014, by filling the online form available at http://rockincompetition.eu which addresses the following questions:
1. Team name + Affiliation
2. Expected number of team members
3. Competition where the team will participate [RoCKIn@Work / RoCKIn@Home]:
4. Whether teams plan to bring their own robot or not
5. Middleware used for software development.

Remarks
* Intention to participate is used by the RoCKIn consortium for an early assessment of the potential number of participants, their hardware and software
* There will be no registration costs for qualified teams
* The RoCKIn consortium has been working on attracting sponsorship to ensure travel support, but for the moment no travel support should be expected
* We are also working with companies that might lend one of their robots during the competition, so as to include the possibility of accepting teams with no robot
* The team selection process will take into account the quality and novelty of research proposed by the team, the quality of the robot design, and other materials showing the potential ability of the team to guarantee high level performances during the competition
* If the number of teams qualified by May 31st is less than the capacity of the venue, a second round of the application and qualification process may take place.

[RoCKIn Robot]

We remind you all that applications are open for RoCKIn Competition 2014/b], to be held in Toulouse this coming November.

Meanwhile, we are glad to announce that Cyberbotics has developed scenarios of the RoCKIn@Work and RoCKIn@Home challenges for the 2014 Competition, which are in line with the rulebooks and can be used with the free edition of Webots.
Qualified teams will have access to Webots PRO for free during a time window that starts at qualification time and ends after the 2014 Competition (i.e., 30 Nov 2014).


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[b]APPLICATIONS REMINDER
RoCKIn Competition 2014, November 26-30, 2014 (European Robotics Week) Cité de L’Espace, Toulouse =======================================================================

RoCKIn is short for “Robot Competitions Kick Innovation in Cognitive Systems and Robotics” and it is an EU-funded Coordination Action aiming at the promotion of research and education in Robotics through competitions (http://rockinrobotchallenge.eu).

The RoCKIn Competition 2014, to be held in Toulouse in the mind-blowing spaces of the science museum "La Cité de L’Espace”
(http://www.cite-espace.com/en), November 26-30, 2014, will be the first of two exciting competition events that will take place during the project lifetime, both during the European Robotics Week: in Toulouse (2014) and Lisbon (2015).

RoCKIn addresses two challenges — RoCKIn@Home and RoCKIn@Work — that take inspiration from the corresponding RoboCup competitions, but focus on benchmarking and networked robot systems. Both challenges require basic navigation capabilities for mobile platforms, advanced (possibly distributed) perception, manipulation and human-robot interaction.
RoCKIn@Home focuses on tasks that service robots execute in a real home environment, while the tasks to be performed in RoCKIn@Work target an industrial automation scenario.

The remaining schedule dates for the application, qualification and registration process for RoCKIn Competition 2014 are:

Schedule
- Application deadline: 23 May 2014 (for all teams, even if no intention to participate was declared)
- Decision on Qualified Teams: 31 May 2014
- Registration open: 01 June 2014 - 1 July 2014 (for the qualified teams only)

***APPLICATION SITE IS OPEN***

All teams interested to participate in RoCKIn Competition 2014 should now apply by May 23rd, 2014, by filling the online form available at
http://rockincompetition.eu/apply
which addresses the following questions:

1. Team name and affiliation
2. Number of team members, with status (e.g., professor, post-doc, PhD student, MSc student) 3. Competition where the team will participate [ RoCKIn@Home and RoCKIn@Work ]

In addition, each team has to prepare and submit a 6-pages 2-column Team Description Paper (TDP).

All the details regarding the format of the two challenges for the 2014 edition, and links to their rulebooks, TDP contents and format, application form and other can be found at
http://rockinrobotchallenge.eu/rockin2014.php