[alife] [IEEE RO-MAN06] Call for Proposals: Robot Companion Design Contest for Students

[Kerstin Dautenhahn]

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 15 July 
2006 to K.Dautenhahn at herts.ac.uk. Poster proposers will be notified by 24 
July 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 30 July 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)


INFORMATION ABOUT RO-MAN06:

---For electronic registration and information about accomodation and 
travel see: http://ro-man2006.feis.herts.ac.uk/

Plenary Speakers:
==================

Prof. Shuji Hashimoto (Waseda University, Japan): "KANSEI Robotics to Open 
a New Epoch of Human-Machine Relationship - Machine with a Heart"

Prof. Illah R Nourbakhsh (Carnegie Mellon University, USA): "A Roadmap for 
Technology Literacy and a Vehicle for Getting There: Educational Robotics 
and the TeRK Project"

Prof. Lucy Suchman (Lancaster University, UK): "Reconfiguring Human-Robot 
Relations"

Half-day tutorials:
====================

Cognitive Robotics (Lecturers: Kazuhiko Kawamura, Vanderbilt University, 
USA; Will Browne, University of Reading, UK)

Coding Video Data in Human-Robot Social Interaction: Behavior and 
Reasoning
(Lecturers: Peter H. Kahn, Jr., Nathan G. Freier, Rachel L. Severson, Cady 
Stanton, University of Washington, USA)

Socio-Emotional Interaction with Virtual Humans (Lecturers: Stacy Marsella 
and Jonathan Gratch, University of Southern California, USA)

Social Interactions with Robot Companions (Lecturers: Britta Wrede, 
University of Bielefeld, Germany; Kerstin Dautenhahn, University of 
Hertfordshire, UK; Rachid Alami, LAAS, France)

All conference attendees will receive 30 days free online access to the 
International Journal of Advanced Robotic Systems 
http://www.ars-journal.com/

Demonstration event:
====================

Including three European Integrated Projects: Cogniron, Neurobotics, 
I-Swarm, part of the European IST .Beyond Robotics Proactive. Initiative 
(http://cordis.europa.eu/ist/fet/ro-sy1.htm)

Attendance of the Conference Banquet at Hatfield House is included in the 
registration fee. Also, all conference attendees will receive 30 days free 
online access to the journal database of the International Journal of 
Advanced Robotic Systems