Difference between revisions of "Robotics weekly meetings"

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==Purpose==
+
==Purpose of the meetings==
   
  +
The robotics meetings are organized to help all roboticists of the lab to accomplish their work, gain knowledge, share, brainstorm, and encourage creativity in general.
# '''Community'''. Keep everyone updated as to what other work is going on in the lab
 
  +
Apart from technical questions, these meetings are also a good occasion to practice our soft-skills, such as presentation skills, to maintain/increase the quality of our work.
# '''Research'''. Cross germination. Get feedback. Get help on problems. Get ideas.
 
# '''Admin'''. Lab administration.
 
<br>
 
   
 
==Format==
 
==Format==
   
# Presentation & Discussion (30 - 50 mins)
+
# Presentation: Between 15 and 45 minutes, depending on your needs
  +
#* New experiment to come
#* Work you have been doing
 
  +
#* Current work
#* Reading you have been doing in the context of your work
 
  +
#* Presention about a paper in robotics litterature on current-day topics
#* Other reading on something you are passionate about
 
  +
#* PhD presentations rehearsals
# Robotics Group Administration (0 - 15 mins)
 
  +
# Discussion on the presentation: 20-30 minutes
  +
# Brainstorming time: list of research questions everyone can ask to the audience to get people's opinion, collaborate, etc.
   
  +
'''''About the presentations'''''
   
  +
Pay special attention to the support that you will use during your presentation:
Try and make your session as involving as possible for everyone:
 
  +
* Avoid fancy powerpoints templates: they don't help to get to your point
* Send round material to be read beforehand.
 
  +
* Less is more: ask yourself if everything in your presentation is mandatory for understanding your point of view. If the answer is no: delete it.
* Ask people before the meeting what aspects of your work / reading they would like to know about or discuss.
 
  +
* 1 slide per minute is a good practice, unless really necessary (typically a slide with an equation will last longer: in this case, you can split it in multiple slides, make things appear one at a time, etc, to increase clarity)
* Think about implications of what you are presenting for the research direction of the lab as a whole - methodologies, technologies etc.
 
  +
* Try to keep your speech as clear as possible during your presentation
<br>
 
   
  +
'''''About the contents themselves'''''
==Timing & Attendance==
 
  +
* Think about implications of what you are presenting for the research direction of the lab as a whole - methodologies, technologies etc. It is always nice for everyone to have a preliminary introduction on your work to understand the technical points.
  +
* To keep things coherent, try to organize your slides having in mind a 'scenario' - a series of messages that you want people to recall after your presentation.
   
  +
==Timing==
The weekly meetings take place, alternatively to literature meetings, on
 
   
  +
The bi-monthly meetings take place on
<center> '''Thursdays at 15.00''' </center>
 
   
  +
<center> '''Fridays at 14.00.''' </center>
Unless:
 
* A given Thursday is a public holiday, or
 
* Something very important (like a Ph.D. defense) is overlapping.
 
   
  +
beggining on Friday, February 14th 2014.
If either should happen the meeting is postponed to the next day.
 
   
  +
The frequency of the meetings can increase if needed.
'''Please indicate on this wiki page if you are not going to be able to attend a meeting''' (no later than the Friday before).
 
   
  +
==Attendance==
If you forget to note your absence in advance you will be severely punished and will be forced to buy a nice, big cake for the following meeting.
 
<br><br>
 
   
  +
Everyone that subscribed to the robotics mailing list is invited to the meetings. Send an e-mail to the organizer of the meetings in case you cannot attend the meeting, at least 2 days before the meeting, for the others to know their audience.
==Previous Meetings==
 
  +
(Policy change: you won't be punished anymore in case you don't come, but you can buy the organizer a beer - he loves the Trappe Quadrupel)
   
  +
=Forthcoming Meetings=
See [[Previous MEETROBOT meetings | Minutes and agendas from previous meetings]].
 
 
 
==Wednesday 7th November 2007 - Alex+Alvaro ==
 
 
'''''Agenda'''''
 
 
# '''Presentation / Discussion'''
 
#*We will present two different works:
 
#* Infrared Communication on the Epucks : We have developed a library that takes care of the proximity sensors and uses them as a communication system. Local communication is up to 33B/sec getting the distance and direction of the source as well. A proof of concept (Now you do what they told you) will be shown during the meeting.
 
#* Sharing knowledge to stay on the path : We have some simulations dealing with odometry errors to find nest and prey in a closed arena. Robots communicate between them to reduce dead-reckoning error. Here we present a first attempt to accomplish the task. Results show the importance of social learning with local communication without the need of a global knowledge.
 
 
'''''Reading material'''''
 
 
 
'''''People who will be absent'''''
 
   
  +
<br>
  +
<center>
  +
'''The schedule of the forthcoming robotics meetings can also be found in the'''
  +
[http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/Calendars/month.php IRIDIA calendar]
  +
</center>
 
<br><br>
 
<br><br>
   
  +
=Past Meetings=
==Friday 23rd November 2007 - Post-Swarmanoid Review Meeting discussion ==
 
   
  +
* February 14th, 2014: "Environmentally-driven collective construction with unconventional materials" - Presentation about Anthony's work
'''''Agenda'''''
 
 
# '''Presentation / Discussion'''
 
#* ''Swarms of hand-bots:'' Brainstorming about a swarm based task. The proposals will be added to the Swarmanoid Wiki pages.
 
 
'''''Reading material'''''
 
 
'''''People who will be absent'''''
 
 
<br><br>
 
 
==Thursday 6th December 2007 - Christos ==
 
 
'''''Agenda'''''
 
 
# '''Presentation / Discussion'''
 
* The Evolution of Self-Assembly in a group of two homogeneous robots.
 
I will present my latest work on evolving self-assembly. The same dynamical neural network controls two sbots, providing the decision-making about who grips whom, but also directly controlling the actuators for the gripping action. This type of work differs significantly from work addressing the same issue performed previously in the lab.
 
 
'''''Reading material'''''
 
 
'''''People who will be absent'''''
 
 
<br><br>
 
 
==Wednesday 16th January 2008 - Marco ==
 
 
'''''Agenda'''''
 
 
# '''Presentation / Discussion'''
 
* Social learning in swarms
 
 
'''''Reading material'''''
 
 
'''''People who will be absent'''''
 
 
<br><br>
 
 
==Wednesday 6th February 2008 - Takashi ==
 
 
'''''Agenda'''''
 
 
# '''Presentation / Discussion'''
 
* Observation and Control of Robots Behaviors by Thermodynamics-based
 
Macroscopic State Values
 
 
'''''Reading material'''''
 
 
'''''People who will be absent'''''
 
 
<br><br>
 
 
==Thursday 6th March 2008 - Alex ==
 
 
'''''Agenda'''''
 
 
# '''Presentation / Discussion'''
 
* Colective Measures
 
 
'''''Reading material'''''
 
 
'''''People who will be absent'''''
 
 
<br><br>
 
 
==Thursday 13th March 2008 - Rehan ==
 
 
'''''Agenda'''''
 
 
# '''Presentation / Discussion'''
 
*Morphology control using SWARMORPH-script.
 
Rapid development using an interpreted scripting language on the
 
robots.
 
 
 
'''''Reading material'''''
 
 
'''''People who will be absent'''''
 
 
<br><br>
 
 
==Thursday 27th March 2008 - Navneet ==
 
 
'''''Agenda'''''
 
 
# '''Presentation / Discussion'''
 
*Automated Design of Two Dimensional Self-assembling Systems
 
 
In this presentation, I will discuss the research I have planned for the
 
remainder of my Ph.D. (to get feedback before I submit my formal
 
research proposal and write my candidacy exams this May).
 
 
'''''Reading material'''''
 
 
'''''People who will be absent'''''
 
 
<br><br>
 
 
 
 
==Thursday 17th April 2008 - Carlo ==
 
 
'''''Agenda'''''
 
 
# '''Presentation / Discussion'''
 
#* Diversity and Communication in the Swarmanoid Project
 
 
I will speak about some ideas I had for communication between eye-bots and foot-bots. The aim of the presentation is to get feedback (what's interesting, what's not) and to trigger a discussion to develop the presented ideas.
 
 
'''''Reading material'''''
 
 
'''''People who will be absent'''''
 
 
<br><br>
 
 
==Thursday 24th April 2008 - Giovanni + Xavier ==
 
 
'''''Agenda'''''
 
 
# '''Presentation / Discussion'''
 
#*
 
 
'''''Reading material'''''
 
 
'''''People who will be absent'''''
 
 
<br><br>
 
 
==Thursday 8th May 2008 - Arne ==
 
 
'''''Agenda'''''
 
 
# '''Presentation / Discussion'''
 
#*
 
 
'''''Reading material'''''
 
 
'''''People who will be absent'''''
 
 
<br><br>
 
 
==Thursday 22nd May 2008 - Eliseo ==
 
 
'''''Agenda'''''
 
 
# '''Presentation / Discussion'''
 
#* Distributed Perception and Autonomous Learning in Swarmanoid
 
 
'''''Reading material'''''
 
 
* [http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/wiki/images/b/be/Eliseo_pres.tar.gz Extended Abstract]
 
 
* [http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/wiki/images/2/2e/Distributed_Perception_and_Autonomous_Learning_in_Swarmanoid.pdf Slides in pdf]
 
 
* [http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/wiki/images/7/78/DPAL.tar.gz Slides (sources) in pptx]
 
 
'''''People who will be absent'''''
 
 
<br><br>
 
 
==Thursday 12th June 2008 - Marco/Handbot Discussion ==
 
 
=== Marco ===
 
 
'''''Agenda'''''
 
 
# '''Presentation / Discussion'''
 
#*
 
 
'''''Reading material'''''
 
 
 
=== Handbot Discussion ===
 
 
'''''Agenda'''''
 
 
* We're going to discuss the answers given by Francesco Mondada concerting the handbot's limitations
 
 
'''''Reading material'''''
 
 
* Francescos email, list of questions, IRIDIA new scenario proposal
 
 
 
<br><br>
 

Latest revision as of 14:20, 17 February 2014

Purpose of the meetings

The robotics meetings are organized to help all roboticists of the lab to accomplish their work, gain knowledge, share, brainstorm, and encourage creativity in general. Apart from technical questions, these meetings are also a good occasion to practice our soft-skills, such as presentation skills, to maintain/increase the quality of our work.

Format

  1. Presentation: Between 15 and 45 minutes, depending on your needs
    • New experiment to come
    • Current work
    • Presention about a paper in robotics litterature on current-day topics
    • PhD presentations rehearsals
  2. Discussion on the presentation: 20-30 minutes
  3. Brainstorming time: list of research questions everyone can ask to the audience to get people's opinion, collaborate, etc.

About the presentations

Pay special attention to the support that you will use during your presentation:

  • Avoid fancy powerpoints templates: they don't help to get to your point
  • Less is more: ask yourself if everything in your presentation is mandatory for understanding your point of view. If the answer is no: delete it.
  • 1 slide per minute is a good practice, unless really necessary (typically a slide with an equation will last longer: in this case, you can split it in multiple slides, make things appear one at a time, etc, to increase clarity)
  • Try to keep your speech as clear as possible during your presentation

About the contents themselves

  • Think about implications of what you are presenting for the research direction of the lab as a whole - methodologies, technologies etc. It is always nice for everyone to have a preliminary introduction on your work to understand the technical points.
  • To keep things coherent, try to organize your slides having in mind a 'scenario' - a series of messages that you want people to recall after your presentation.

Timing

The bi-monthly meetings take place on

Fridays at 14.00.

beggining on Friday, February 14th 2014.

The frequency of the meetings can increase if needed.

Attendance

Everyone that subscribed to the robotics mailing list is invited to the meetings. Send an e-mail to the organizer of the meetings in case you cannot attend the meeting, at least 2 days before the meeting, for the others to know their audience. (Policy change: you won't be punished anymore in case you don't come, but you can buy the organizer a beer - he loves the Trappe Quadrupel)

Forthcoming Meetings


The schedule of the forthcoming robotics meetings can also be found in the IRIDIA calendar



Past Meetings

  • February 14th, 2014: "Environmentally-driven collective construction with unconventional materials" - Presentation about Anthony's work