The Boston Chapter of the IEEE's Robotics and Automation Society is pleased to announce the following talk: Autonomous Robot Competitions as an Educational Motivator by Contest Organizers and Members of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society Central New England Chapter The talk will be given: Tuesday, October 8, 2002 at 6:30 p.m. at MITRE 202 Burlington Road Bedford, MA 01730 Informal discussion will start at 6:00 p.m. ABSTRACT We will present several autonomous robot competition venues currently being used for education in science and engineering. This meeting will be for the purposes of presenting what competitions are available and providing a forum for requests from the contest organizers for volunteer assistance by our members as mentors or judges or in other ways. Four to six competitions will be presented with discussion, questions, and answers. Competitions to be discussed will include but are not limited to: BotBall Presented by the KISS Institute for Robotics, the BotBall Robotics Program gets the wheels turning for hands-on learning in science, technology, engineering, and math. Contestants acquire experience with high technology as they design, build, and program their own autonomous mobile robot. The game is played on a 4-foot by 8-foot board where robots score points by placing black or white balls in scoring position. First Lego League Each year in September, First Lego League -- a worldwide program for children created in partnership with the LEGO Company -- announces a different challenge. Teams then receive their kits, which engage them in hands-on robotics design and authentic scientific research. After eight intense weeks, the season culminates at high-energy, sports-like tournaments. In 2001 the challenge was "The Arctic Impact". Every team received a starting bonus of 25 points, represented by five barrels in the Fuel Storage Hut. If the robot was unable to return to the ship after a mission, the team could manually move the robot back to the ship with a penalty of 5 points or one barrel. Trinity College Fire-Fighting Contest The goal of the contest is to build a robot that can find and extinguish a fire in a house. The challenge for the entrants is to build an autonomous robotic device that can move through a model of a single floor of a house, detect a fire (a lit candle), and then put it out. The winner is the robot that can consistently accomplish this task in the shortest time. The model house is square, 249 cm (8 feet) on a side, with walls, hallways and rooms. There are several levels of competition with the highest or expert level having to demonstrate the highest level of competence in finding the candle and navigating through the model house. RoboCup RoboCup is an international joint project to promote AI, robotics, and related fields by providing a standard problem where wide range of technologies can be integrated and examined. RoboCup uses the game of soccer as the target topic of research, with the hope of developing innovations that can be applied to socially significant problems and industries. RoboCup offers venues for simulations and for robots of various types: small, medium, multi-legged, and humanoid. The ultimate goal of the RoboCup competition is the creation of a team of fully autonomous soccer-playing robots that will beat the human world champion soccer team by the year 2050. MEETING INFORMATION The IEEE Robotics and Automation Society will meet on Tuesday, October 8, 2002, at MITRE at 6:00 PM for informal discussions and for the formal presentation between 6:30 and 7:30 PM. The group will have a no-host dinner afterwards at Victoria Station on Middlesex Turnpike, where more conversations can take place with the guest speaker. The meetings are open to the general public, and all are welcome at the dinner afterwards. Note that we will elect next year's Chapter officers at 6:25 PM at this meeting. For more information contact Mike Brenner at 781-271-3806 or the Chapter email address: info@robotics-boston.org SPECIAL MEETING REQUIREMENTS A GOVERNMENT-ISSUED PICTURE ID WILL BE REQUIRED. The meeting is open to CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES WITH GOVERNMENT ISSUED PICTURE ID AND TO FOREIGNERS WITH PICTURE ID AND DOCUMENTATION OF LEGAL STATUS IN THIS COUNTRY. Picture ID can be a driver's license or passport. In particular, it will speed up the process of passing through Security if all non-citizens planning to attend this Chapter meeting would please let Mike know in advance, either by email or by phone. DIRECTIONS From Route 128, take Route 3 North one exit (approximately 2 miles) to the Bedford Highway 62 exit. Make a right turn and go 0.2 miles to the first traffic light. Go left into MITRE and immediately bear right for 0.25 miles to the large Building 'A' parking lot. Register with the guard in Building 'A'. The meeting is in Room 1A401. For a web map showing MITRE, go to the Yahoo map site at http://maps.yahoo.com/ and enter the following information in the indicated locations: Address: 202 Burlington Road City, State or ZIP: Bedford MA 01730 The marker shows approximately where you make the left turn into the MITRE lab (shown in grey) and the road bearing right to the first large parking lot. Anyone at MITRE will be able to give you directions to Building A. For more information about our Section and Chapter, visit our web site at our registered domain URL http://www.robotics-boston.org/