My Robot Companion

CALL FOR POSTER PROPOSALS: ROBOT COMPANION DESIGN CONTEST FOR STUDENTS

RO-MAN 06: The 15th IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication, 6-8 September 2006, University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, UK

Sponsored by: COGNIRON, the IST-FET Integrated Project on "Cognitive Robot Companions" (www.cogniron.org). Submit a robot design and you may win a prize!

A Robot Companion in the Home: Robot Design Poster Contest for Students

Why submitting a poster proposal?

Much has been published in the media about service robots and correspondingly expectations are high. New robots are turned out by industry and academia at an increasing rate and the variety is enormous: many look humanoid, others machine-like or cartoon-like. Some robots seem funny, others intimidating. Of particular interest are service robots, i.e. robots that can perform a variety of assistive tasks in human-inhabited environments. It is unclear at present which designs will be best accepted by customers and thus succeed on the market.

Of special interest are robots that have to deal with humans in a natural setting. This requires a thorough evaluation of the requirements of the human partners and the design of the robots, taking into account not only technological advancement but also issues like safety, expectation, trust, ease of use etc. Therefore, increasingly science and engineering activities are devoted to the area of Human-Robot Interaction. Intense research efforts are in demand of groundbreaking ideas especially regarding straightforward solutions to hard problems. Building robots that have to function reliably with humans in a real home environment is far from trivial and a number of problems seem almost insurmountable. But maybe we.re just too traditional and old fashioned in our approach? The ROBOT DESIGN POSTER CONTEST FOR STUDENTS gives you the possibility to shake up the robot community in a non-formal and enjoyable way with your own fancy proposals for developing and building robots. Ideas should develop the concept of a ROBOT COMPANION, i.e. a robot for a home environment that can perform a variety of tasks, assist people and will be accepted as a companion.

Smart engineering, creative designs or unorthodox materials might solve some of the hard problems in a surprisingly original . and sometimes even embarrassingly simple - way. To come up with such revolutionary approaches requires flexible and open minds from researchers that are not (yet) biased by academic traditions and established networks. In other words, we need YOU, the enthusiast and daring student (undergraduate or postgraduate) and we want to know about your ideas. We therefore invite you to take part in our Robot Design Poster Contest for Students.

The aim of the contest is to collect a good number of high quality posters containing novel, unusual, artistic, and entertaining ideas about the design and/or construction of robots that have to interact with humans. Posters should provide sufficient details about the novel idea(s), the size and appearance of the robot that is portrayed, functionalities, as well as behavioural, communicative and interactive abilities. The posters will be on display during the conference. Only a limited number of poster boards are available, thus a pre-selection based on novelty of the ideas and relevance to the conference will be made.

How to Submit:

To be liable for participation, we need a short (up to 500 words) summary of your poster briefly outlining the initial idea that will be further elaborated on the final poster. The summary should be text only (no drawings, pictures etc.) and send as an e-mail (no attachments) by 20 August 2006 to K.Dautenhahn@herts.ac.uk. Poster proposers will be notified by 23 August 2006 about the availability of poster space and the acceptance of their proposal.

Poster presenters will have to register for the conference. The deadline for early registration fees will be extended, for authors of accepted poster contributions only, to 28 August 2006.

The best 2 posters will be announced at the conference and their designers will have an opportunity to present their work to the IEEE RO-MAN06 audience.

***The COGNIRON project sponsors a prize for the two best posters of 800 Euros for the first prize and 500 Euros for the second prize***

Let your imagination run free and unrestricted, but be sure that your poster presented at the conference attracts attention by short but easy to grasp justifications of the design and a visually pleasing layout.

Looking forward to your submissions!

Kerstin Dautenhahn and Rene te Boekhorst
(Organizers of Robot Design Poster Contest)