1st Call for Participation: RoboCup@Home Education Challenge 2020 @ RoboCup 2020 Bordeaux

[Jeffrey Tan]

== 1st Call for Participation
== RoboCup@Home Education Challenge 2020 @ RoboCup 2020 Bordeaux

[ Date ] June 23 ~ 29, 2020
[ Venue ] Parc des Expositions de Bordeaux, Bordeaux, France
[ Web ] https://www.robocupathomeedu.org/

<<Introduction>>

The RoboCup@Home Education Challenge is an educational competition
platform to cultivate beginner teams for RoboCup@Home challenges and
service robot development. The purpose of the Education Challenge is
to open the participation for everyone, not limited to technical
university students, but also inexperienced high school students and
the general public. The unique Workshop+Competition format effectively
boosts novice participants for challenging service robot development
and AI learning within an event time.

We have started RoboCup@Home Education activities since 2015,
organized various workshops, talks & demos and challenges from local
national events from national events within countries, to regional
events covering Asia-Pacific, Europe and Americas, and international
events hosted in the annual international RoboCup events. Our outreach
activities have raised over 12 regional communities worldwide, running
events over 40 cities.

Starting from 2017, we are collaborating with MathWorks to conduct
hands-on workshops during the challenge events. It was a successful
approach in transforming totally inexperienced participants to be able
to build robots and ace the competition. This year, we welcome a new
partner, SoftBank Robotics to bring in the Pepper robots for our new
edition of Standard Platform challenge. We are very grateful that
SoftBank Robotics is leasing for free the Pepper robots for qualified
Standard Platform teams to use in the event. Also, Open Platform teams
who don’t own a robot also can apply for a free leasing robot platform
by Jupiter Robot.

To date, we have hosted 16 Education Challenges worldwide, including 2
international events in RoboCup 2018 Montreal and RoboCup 2019 Sydney,
where a total of 26 teams over 110 participants had taken part in the
events. With this inspiring motivation, we are organizing this event
in the coming RoboCup 2020 Bordeaux [https://2020.robocup.org/] for
participation from the worldwide RoboCup community.

<<Sponsors>>

- RoboCup Federation
- MathWorks
- SoftBank Robotics
- Jupiter Robot

<<Schedule and Rules>>

- Workshop and Setup: June 23 ~ 25, 2020
- Competition: June 26 ~ 28, 2020

For more details and competition rules, please visit
https://www.robocupathomeedu.org/challenges/robocup-2020-bordeaux

<<Categories and Awards>>

Open Platform (OP) [Custom Build Robots]
- Open category
- Junior category (under 19)
Standard Platform (SP) [Pepper Robot by SoftBank Robotics]
- Open category
- Junior category (under 19)

Special Awards
- MathWorks Award
- SoftBank Robotics Award
- Jupiter Robot Award

<<How to Participate>> (1st Call for Participation)

[ Step 1 - Entry Application ]
Fill in and submit the online entry form below (one per team). If you
have any difficulty submitting online, please contact
o...@robocupathomeedu.org.
** Teams from China, please contact RCJ China for entry application.

Online Entry Form: https://forms.gle/ax2vJw5mQR7KzQih8

[ Step 2 - Qualification ]
After submitting the entry application, please prepare the
Qualification Materials and submit by email to o...@robocupathomeedu.org
before the following due date.

Due of Qualification Materials Submission: March 31, 2020

Qualification Materials

Team with own hardware
- Team Description Paper (TDP): Technical description and photos of
the robot system.
- Team Video: Video showing the robot is solving some tasks.
Team without own hardware
- Team Description Paper (TDP): Project planning of the robot
demonstration for Finals.
- Team Video: Video showing the team has completed some of the
tutorials in our OpenCourseWare.

** TDP free format, maximum 4 pages.
** Please host the video online and submit only the link.
** The email subject should be: [@HomeEDU2020-Qualification] (Your Team Name)

[ Step 3 - Registration ]
The OC will review your entry and response by email on the review
result. Complete the registration procedure according to the
instructions in the email.

<<Important Dates>> (1st Call for Participation)

Entry Application: January 31 ~ March 15, 2020
Due of Qualification Materials Submission: March 31, 2020
Qualification Reviews: March 31 ~ April 15, 2020
Registration: April 15 ~ May 15, 2020

* Due to the availability of the robot hardware provided to the teams
during the event, there are a limited amount of team slots available
for registration. The registration will be closed once the team slots
are filled up even before the above due date.

Please visit the official website for more information. You can
contact us via o...@robocupathomeedu.org


Best Regards,
RoboCup@Home Education Challenge 2020 Organizing Committee