IJCAI 2009
Robotics Exhibition
   and Workshop

Welcome to the 2009 Student Robotics Challenge, held in conjuction with the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence.

Mission Statement

Robots - and the AI algorithms that control them - are quickly maturing as resources that help convey computer science, engineering, and many other curricula. This venue offers an accessible and flexible opportunity for undergraduate, early graduate, or pre-college student teams to design, implement, and demonstrate an autonomous robotic system. The tasks involved are fundamental to AI: to explore, manipulate, and learn an unknown environment. In the long run, we hope to motivate hands-on AI robotics investigation both for its own sake and in service to other academic disciplines and educational goals.

This site's URL: http://www.cs.hmc.edu/ijcai09urc
SRC Guidelines URL: http://www.cs.hmc.edu/ijcai09urc/rules.html

Call for Participation

IJCAI 2009 Student Robotics Challenge

July 13-16, 2009, Pasadena, CA, USA

The Challenge

The IJCAI 2009 Student Robotics Challenge invites entries by teams or individuals. Entries consist of one or more physical robots that will exhibit a subset of these skills:

• exploration -- safely traversing the environment
• manipulation -- gathering landmarks or other tokens from the environment
• modeling -- collecting and reporting information about the surroundings and/or landmarks

These three skills certainly occupy a central place in embodied AI. However, in order to offer an event that supports existing curricula as much as possible, these tasks are also quite flexible. For example, teams are encouraged to augment the environment with landmarks of their own choosing or design. Teams are also encouraged to choose hardware, software, and algorithmic approaches that enhance and extend class projects, independent studies, and/or research into AI robotics.

We welcome questions, suggestions, and comments -- let us know what you think!
A more detailed set of task guidelines appears at this link.

Contribute!

Teams and individuals interested in participating should submit a 1 page plain-text proposal, by March 30, 2009, containing

1. the names and institution(s) of the team member(s) and advisor(s);
2. the hardware and software that you plan to use in the challenge;
3. a brief description of the approach(es) you're considering for one or more of the tasks.

SUBMISSION should be done via email to the addresses: burhansd@canisius.edu and dodds@cs.hmc.edu

ACCEPTANCE notifications will be sent out by April 5, 2009.

TRAVEL SUPPORT may be possible for participants and their hardware, depending on available funds and level of demand.

PRIZES will be awarded, both overall and as judges' awards and blue ribbons for excellence in individual subtasks, systems, and/or facets of system design.

PUBLICATION of your contribution as part of the Robotics Program proceedings will be an option for participants, though it will not be required. The deadline for inclusion in the proceedings is about a month after IJCAI.

Schedule

The IJCAI 2009 Robotics site can be consulted for more information about the workshop and all of the robotics events:    http://robotics.cs.brown.edu/ijcai09/

A detailed schedule specific to the student robotics challenge will be posted closer to the event.

Contact the organizers

Please contact the organizers for any details:

Deb Burhans (Canisius College) - burhansd@canisius.edu
Zach Dodds (Harvey Mudd College) - dodds@cs.hmc.edu