The Peccioli RIF will host the RoCKIn Camp 2015!

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

The RoCKIn Camp 2015 aims at leveraging the preparation of teams to participate in the RoCKIn@Home and RoCKIn@Work challenges, the competition event that will be organized by RoCKIn in Lisbon 2015. RoCKIn@Home and RoCKIn@Worktake inspiration from the corresponding RoboCup leagues, but they focus on benchmarking robotic systems and networked robots. Both challenges require basic navigation capabilities with no restrictions on the mobile platform, advance 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 RoCKIn Camp 2015 will take place from 18th to 22nd March in the ECHORD++ facility of Peccioli (Italy) and it is designed as a hands-on week long school, where teams improve the performance of their systems through working sessions in the RoCKIn competition tasks and functional benchmarks. At the Camp site, a realistic environment for both competitions will be provided by relying on the existing ECHORD++ testbeds and equipped with the RoCKIn ground truth system for logging data and create benchmarks. The activities planned correspond to the Tasks and Functional Benchmarks as defined in RoCKIn (http://rm.isr.ist.utl.pt/projects/rockin-competitions-wiki/wiki).

As outcomes of the field exercise, we plan to collect the best technical and scientific contributions achieved through the experimental evaluation performed at the Camp in the task and benchmarks into a Special Issue of a scientific Journal.

In addition to the teams selected after the RoCKIn 2014 competition event, the RoCKIn Camp 2015 is open to additional participation of European teams. We accept applications in two formats:
• Team applications (for teams with an already established record). Team applicants must bring their robot to be used in the practical activities.
• Individual applications by team members.

All successful applicants (individuals and team members) will be offered:
• Accommodation in shared rooms (including breakfast, 5 nights)
• Lunch (5 days) and social event
• Access to the testing facilities arranged for the RoCKIN@Home and RoCKIn@Work

Each selected team will be allowed up to four team members and will be awarded a travel support up to 1200 Euros.

For further questions contact Daniele Nardi: nardi@dis.uniroma1.it

See some pictures here: http://www.echord.eu/facilities-rifs/the-peccioli-rif/