May 2022 - RoboCup-worldwide - lists.robocup.org

Launch Into Robotics With CMU
by RISS Info 26 May '22

26 May '22

RoboLaunch Talks | Workshops | Competitions We are writing to you because of this organization's goal of connecting students to robotics. Carnegie Mellons' RoboLaunch is a new initiative that offers a series of talks and conversations from diverse pioneers through which participants can explore robotics and how research/education can be fun! The initiative introduces participants to broad topics in robotics through talks, interactive workshops, and culminates in a competition in the fall where participants show what they have learned. Attached below is a flyer with information on how prospective students can sign up for RoboLaunch. To help connect students with this fantastic opportunity, we hoped you would share the attached flier with your members. Interested in RoboLaunch? Register below to take part in the events and receive updates & reminders. Learn more about RoboLaunch here: https://riss.ri.cmu.edu/robolaunch/<https://riss.ri.cmu.edu/robolaunch/> We would love to hear more from you, so if you have any questions, contact riss-info(a)andrew.cmu.edu. Flier: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MxFDIVUTMOLH3sQ6SmPYBejrJAtlrnOk/view?usp=…

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[HRI][meetings][CFP] Call for Contributions - GenR 2022 Workshop @RO-MAN 2022 - Gendering Robots: Intersectional Feminist Perspectives on Gender in Social Robotics
by Giulia Perugia 25 May '22

25 May '22

Dear Colleagues, Apologies for any cross-posting. We are glad to invite contributions for the 2nd Edition of the GenR Workshop (*GenR 2022*) *Gendering Robots: Intersectional Feminist Perspectives on Gender in Social Robotics* which will be held as part of the IEEE International Conference on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN 2022) on August 29th, 2022 in hybrid form. This year we do not invite full papers but contributions in many different formats - e.g., text, videos, pictorials, images (deadline: June 24th). We would like potential contributors to describe their out of the box ideas, visions, and reflections on the topic of the workshop in the format they prefer. Below, you can find our call for contributions, as well as the link to our website and the submission form. Feel free to contact us if you have any questions and to circulate the call within your network. Kindest regards, Giulia Perugia \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ [CFP] Call for Contributions - GenR 2022 Workshop @RO-MAN 2022 - Gendering Robots: Intersectional Feminist Perspectives on Gender in Social Robotics [ website <https://sites.google.com/view/ro-man-genr-workshop/home>] This year’s GenR workshop aims to provide a space for collaborative discussion, critical reflection, and creativity to find opportunities to break with normative research practices in robotics methodology and robot design from an intersectional perspective. Our spotlight theme for this year’s workshop is Intersectional Feminism. Kimberle Crenshaw first introduced intersectionality as a term to describe the discriminatory effects of race and gender, which cannot be understood in isolation as they amplify and resonate with each other. Crenshaw and other feminists have since developed intersectionality as a framework to understand the interaction of social markers such as gender, race, class, disability, and their effects on social phenomena. The HRI literature has extensively shown that social robots, especially humanoid ones, are exposed to the same social categorisation processes that affect humans. The integration of social robots in the political dimensions and social categories of society demands a deeper engagement with their potential dangers and opportunities. Instead of a regular call for papers, the GenR 2022 workshop team invites contributions describing ambitious, out of the box ideas to break with normative practices in Social Robotics and HRI, as well as creative visions for the future of social robotics and critical reflections about its present from an intersectional lens. We invite you to submit EITHER a one-page written submission describing an idea, reflection, or vision (no template or pre-defined format), OR a media (i.e., short 5-min videos, pictorial, drawing, sketch, design) depicting an idea, reflection, or vision in a more artistic way. We do not set any limit to creativity, but rather invite you to experiment! Topics of interest include but are not limited to: - Gendering practices in social robotics - Intersectional feminist robotics - Robot’s gender design - Norm-critical design - Queer design in HRI - Sex Robots - Ethics of gendered robots - Societal implications and applications of gendered robots - Performative arts encompassing a reflection on gender in robotics - LGBTQIA+ perspectives on robot gender - Marginalised perspectives on gender in HRI - Queering Robots - Queer identities in HRI - Black in Robotics - Race in Robotics - Disability in Robotics - Research methods to foster gender diversity in HRI studies - Critical design of gendered robots Important dates - June 24th - submission deadline - August 5th - notification of selection - August 29th - workshop day (morning CEST) Written and media contributions can be submitted at the following link <https://htionline.tue.nl/limesurvey2/index.php/999913?lang=en> Submissions will be checked for alignment to the workshop’s themes and goals. In case we receive more submissions than we can showcase, we will perform a light review of the contributions. The selected contributors will be invited to participate in round table sessions or spotlight presentations on the day of the workshop. Organisers Dr. Giulia Perugia, Eindhoven University of Technology, g.perugia(a)tue.nl Dr. Katie Winkle, Uppsala University, katie.winkle(a)it.uu.se Dominika Lisy, Linköping University, dominika.lisy(a)liu.se Dr. Maike Paetzel-Prüsmann, Potsdam University, paetzel-pruesmann(a)uni-potsdam.de

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CMU Postdoc Position(s) in ML & HRI
by Michael Lewis 25 May '22

25 May '22

Postdoctoral Fellow Position at Carnegie Mellon University Deep Reinforcement Learning Techniques for Human Robot Teaming Systems OPEN POSITION: A postdoctoral fellow position at Robotics Institute, CMU SUPERVISOR: Prof. Katia Sycara (katia(a)cs.cmu.edu) The Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University Website: http://ri.cmu.edu/ri-faculty/katia-sycara LOCATION: The Advanced Agent-Robotics Technology Lab The Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA DESCRIPTION: The successful candidate will work on Deep Reinforcement Learning algorithms for human agent teams, with agents interacting autonomously or with humans. Position open immediately in 2022. Start in early 2023 is negotiable. The expected duration of the position is one to three years with renewals upon review. In particular, the research will involve computational models for making inferences and predictions about the behaviors and activities of other agents and human-agent teams so as to (1) perform complementary beneficial actions, and (2) give advice to human and agent team mates to improve overall team performance. The research involves a rich variety of research issues, such as theory of mind models, explainable AI, concept learning and transfer learning. QUALIFICATIONS: - PhD in a field related to AI/ML in particular reinforcement learning in Robotics, CS or related discipline. - A strong theoretical background in Machine Learning - Programming skills including experiences using C++, Python, and/or MATLAB, Neural Network frameworks, eg pytorch - Ability to present work clearly both written and orally - Experiences with deep learning tools mandatory. APPLICATION DETAILS: Applicants should provide the following material via email to Prof. Katia Sycara (katia(a)cs.cmu.edu). Please use the subject line: “Postdoc application”. Applications will be reviewed as they are received. - A curriculum vitae - A statement of research expertise and interests (up to 2 pages) - Up to 3 publications - Names and contact information of three references - Dates of availability - A personal website, if available, where further details can be found DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES The postdoc will (a) carry out high quality research and publish the research results, (b) assist in research supervision and guidance of graduate and undergraduate students, (c) present research results to sponsors, (d) participate in research proposal preparation.

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Final Call for Participation: RoboCup@Home Education Workshop & Challenge 2022 (Online & On-site)
by Jeffrey Tan 24 May '22

24 May '22

Dear RoboCup Community, After two years of online events, finally we are organizing an on-site RoboCup@Home Education Challenge event at the RoboCup 2022 Bangkok in July 2022. The event will run in both online and on-site tracks, comprising a series of robot building short courses for beginners via online classroom with live streaming of remote participation online challenge, and on-site hands-on workshop with face-to-face participation on-site competition in Bangkok. We hope everyone around the world can join us together in RoboCup development and challenges regardless of travel restrictions. With that, we are proud to announce the RoboCup@Home Education Workshop & Challenge 2022! The event details are as follows in the Final Call for Participation announcement. == Final Call for Participation: RoboCup@Home Education Workshop & Challenge 2022 == [ Venue ] Online OR On-site (Thailand) [ Date ] RoboCup 2022 Bangkok July 11 ~ 17, 2022 [ Web ] https://www.robocupathomeedu.org/challenges/robocup-2022-bangkok << Supported by >> - RoboCup Federation - RoboCup 2022 LOC << Sponsors and Technical Partners >> - SoftBank Robotics - Jupiter Robot << Schedule and Rules >> - Technical Materials Submission: May 27, 2022 - RoboCup 2022 Bangkok: July 11 ~ 17, 2022 For the competition rules, please visit https://www.robocupathomeedu.org/rules << Categories >> Open Platform (OP) - Custom Build Robots Standard Platform (SP) - SoftBank Pepper Robot << How to Participate >> [√] Step 0 - Intend To Participate (Entry Application) [√] Step 1 - Kick-Off Webinar [√] Step 2 - Online Classroom Step 3 - Technical Review & Challenge Step 4 (Online) - Online Challenge (Finals) Step 4 (On-site) - On-site Workshop & Challenge For more details, please visit https://www.robocupathomeedu.org/challenges/robocup-2022-bangkok You can contact us via oc(a)robocupathomeedu.org Best regards, RoboCup@Home Education Workshop & Challenge 2022 Organizing Committee

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[meetings][cfp](SCRITA Workshop @ RO-MAN 2022) Trust, Acceptance and Social Cues in Human-Robot Interaction - SCRITA Workshop
by alexarossi＠gmail.com 16 May '22

16 May '22

Dear colleagues, It is with great pleasure that we would like to invite you at the fifth edition of SCRITA Workshop <scrita.herts.ac.uk> at IEEE RO-MAN 2022. This workshop will be a full day event on 29 August 2022, in conjunction with the IEEE RO-MAN 2022 <http://www.smile.unina.it/ro-man2022/> conference, held in sunny and beautiful Naples, Italy. The workshop is open to a broad audience from academia and industry researching social robotics, machine learning, robot behavioural control, and user recommendation. We will foster the exchange of insights on past and ongoing research, and contribute to the discussion of innovative ideas for tackling unresolved issues by providing new and inspirational directions of research with brilliant invited speakers and a panel of experts in the field. Please find attached below the call for papers. For any questions and information, do not hesitate to contact us (emails below). Kind regards, Alessandra -- Dr. Alessandra Rossi Assistant Professor PRISCA research lab Department of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology University of Naples Federico II, Naples, Italy ================================================================ *** WorkhopTrust, Acceptance and Social Cues in Human-Robot Interaction *** 31st IEEE International Conference on Robot & Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN 2022) August 29th - September 2nd, 2022 Naples, Italy http://ro-man2022.org <http://ro-man2022.org/> *Important Dates* *Submission deadline*: 15 July 2022 *Acceptance*: 31 July 2022 People's ability of accepting and trusting robots is fundamental for a fruitful and successful coexistence between humans and people. While advanced progresses are reached in studying and evaluating the factors affecting acceptance and trust of people in robots in controlled or short-term (repeated interactions) setting, developing service and personal robots, that are accepted and trusted by people where the supervision of operators is not possible, still presents an open challenge for scientists in robotics, AI and HRI fields. In such unstructured static and dynamic human-centred environments scenarios, robots should be able to learn and adapt their behaviours to the situational context, but also to people’s prior experiences and learned associations, their expectations, and their and the robot’s ability to predict and understand each other's behaviours. This workshop focuses on addressing the challenges and development of the dynamics between people and robots in order to foster short interactions and long-lasting relationships in different fields, from educational, service, collaborative, companion, care-home and medical robotics. Although the previous editions valued the participation of leading researchers in the field and several exceptional invited speakers who tackled down some fundamental points in this research domains, we wish to continue to further explore the role of trust in robotics to present groundbreaking research to effectively design and develop socially acceptable and trustable robots to be deployed "in the wild". Topics of interest include but are not limited to: * Impact of Social Cues on Trust in HRI * Measuring Trust in HRI * Trust Violation and Recovery Mechanism in HRI * Effects of Humans’ Acceptance on Trust of Robots * Humans Sense of Control and Trust in Robots * Trust and Assistive Robotics * Overtrust in Robots * Antecedent of Trust and Robot Trust * Enhancing Humans Trust in Robots * Enhancing Trust in a Robot Companion * Privacy Implications on Trust in HRI * Mental Models and Trust in HRI * Trust and Safety in HRI * Ethics Implications on Trust in HRI * Trustworthy AI * XAI in HRI * Legal Frameworks for Trustworthy Robotics Templates and Submission Procedure We encourage participants to submit two-page abstracts or full papers (up to 6 pages) on original and unpublished research. We will also welcome submissions of two-page position papers on topics covering the scope of the workshop. All accepted papers will have an oral presentations. We further welcome authors of the accepted papers to present a video or demonstrate their works and achievements. Video demonstrations should be accompagnied by an up to 2 pages abstract describing the work and achievements. Authors should submit their papers formatted according to the IEEE two-column format <http://ras.papercept.net/conferences/support/support.php>, which is also used for contributions to the main conference. Use the following templates to create the paper and generate or export a PDF file: LaTeX <http://ras.papercept.net/conferences/support/tex.php> or MS-Word <http://ras.papercept.net/conferences/support/word.php>. PDF submission will be possible via EasyChair <https://easychair.org/my/conference?conf=scrita2022>. Each paper will receive at least two reviews. All papers are reviewed using a single-blind review process: authors declare their names and affiliations in the manuscript for the reviewers to see, but reviewers do not know each other's identities, nor do the authors receive information about who has reviewed their manuscript. Authors who want to include a video in their submission can indicate their plans via EasyChair and will be sent a link to a confidentially upload the video file. At least one of the authors of the accepted papers needs to register for the workshop. Invited Speakers The following keynote speakers have already agreed to participate in this workshop: * Alan Wagner, Penn State University, USA * Moojan Ghafurian, University of Waterloo, Canada * Takayuki Kanda, Kyoto University, Japan Panel Session The following experts have already agreed to participate in this workshop: * Alessandro Di Nuovo, Sheffield Hallam University, UK * Kerstin Sophie Haring, University of Denver, USA

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2022 European RoboCupJunior @home education
by April Foster 11 May '22

11 May '22

European RoboCupJunior 2022 - @home education Registration is Open RoboCup@Home Education is a special education program to support new teams in the context of a simplified RoboCup@Home competition. It is oriented to help form new teams and prepare them for the main competitions. Please visit the official website for more information on: https://2022.robocupjunior.eu/leagues/others/home-education/ You can contact us via email: home_edu(a)2022.robocupjunior.eu 1 - 4 June 2022 Guimarães, Portugal Details about registration (fee, accommodation, rules) are available on the website. https://2022.robocupjunior.eu/register-team/ VENUE Pavilhão Multiusos - Guimarães Alameda Cidade de Lisboa 481, Guimarães (Portugal) GPS: 41.4354604427687, -8.306253820680457 AIM RoboCup@Home Education is an educational initiative that promotes educational efforts to promote access to modern technologies such as computer vision, speech understanding, or machine learning and to boost RoboCup@Home participation and service robot development. The aim is to narrow the technological gap between RoboCupJunior and RoboCup Major leagues. RoboCup@Home Education activities started in 2015 with various workshops and competitions around the globe. The workshop audiences range from inexperienced high school students to freshmen in engineering programs at the university level. In order to provide a soft start, the competitions are blended with preparation workshops. Teams will be assisted remotely in preparation for the challenge with tutorials (possibly webinars) and assignments. CATEGORIES There are two types of robot platforms in the Education Challenge: Open Platform (OP) and Standard Platform (SP). Teams in Open Platform use custom build robots for the challenge events. The challenge’s development focus is on both hardware and software designs. Teams in Standard Platform use a standardized robot platform - Pepper robot from SoftBank Robotics in the challenge events. The development focus is mainly on software design. For more details and competition rules, please visit http://www.robocupathomeedu.org

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2022 European RoboCup Middle Size League Championship
by April Foster 11 May '22

11 May '22

European RoboCup Middle Size League Championship 2022 Registration is Open https://2022.robocupjunior.eu 1 - 4 June 2022 Guimarães, Portugal (Multiusos de Guimarães - GPS: 41.43547511153526, -8.3062854116528) Registration closes on *** 23 May 2022 ***. Details about registration (fee, accommodation, rules) are available on the website. https://2022.robocupjunior.eu/register-team/ Visit us at: https://2022.robocupjunior.eu/leagues/european-msl-championship/ League Chair - Vitor Pinto (vitorpinto(a)fe.up.pt) ------------ Important dates ----------------------------------- 23.05.2022 Registration deadline - names, team, registration fee 01.06.2022 Set-up day 02.06.2022 Competition day (open to the public) 03.06.2022 Competition day (open to the public) 04.06.2022 Competition day, finals (open to the public) Please contact info(a)2022.robocupjunior.eu for any questions. See you all in Portugal at the European RoboCup Middle Size League Championship 2022. Organized by: Botnroll, University of Minho, Guimarães City Council, Laboratory of Automation and Robotics

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3-year-Research-Position: Human Robot Interaction in robotics systems for table-grape harvesting and pruning
by Luca Iocchi 02 May '22

02 May '22

3-year research position, DIAG, Sapienza University, Rome Human Robot Interaction in robotics systems for table-grape harvesting and pruning The position is funded by the CANOPIES project (https://canopies.inf.uniroma3.it), with the scientific objectiveofdevelopingnovel human-robot interaction (HRI) methodologies for implementing an effective collaborative paradigm between human workers and multi-robot teams for the precision farming of permanents crops in the context of the table-grape vineyards.Specifically, this position aims at the development ofa multi-modal interactionframeworkand of a novel approach to keep a shared mental statesupporting the interaction.We address human-robot interaction by considering both implicit and explicit communicationand the evaluationof the effectiveness of different communication modes in the agricultural contextrelies on a novel virtual environment developed within CANOPIES. The research group working on the CANOPIES project at Sapienza has a strong focus and expertise in HRI and there will be opportunities for the development of fundamental research on AI approaches to HRI. The call is in Italian (deadline May 5th) https://web.uniroma1.it/trasparenza/bando/188890_1/2022 for information contact: nardi(a)diag.uniroma1.it

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