ROS-Industrial Events and News!
Robinson, Matt M.
Hello ROS-I Community!
I appreciate the response so far with regards to the recent announcement about the migration to ROS Discourse. I’m confident that this will be a beneficial move for ROS-Industrial and the Community. In the meantime, I wanted to take a moment to sum up some upcoming events and news items.
We have recently finalized the agenda and made available a printable version for this year’s upcoming ROS-Industrial Consortium – Americas Annual Meeting. You can also see all the latest details, including a map to get you around the Southwest Research Institute over at the event page at: https://rosindustrial.org/events/2018/3/7/ros-industrial-americas-annual-meeting.
Demonstrations are open to the public on March 7 for registered attendees, and will include Mobile applications for manufacturing, OEM developed interfaces and capability, Robotic Blending, and more. The 7th keynote address will feature Rick Meyers of AFRL talking about the Air Force's ManTech Mission around Robotics and how that led to the A5 program. Then enjoy dinner with the group at the Iron Cactus, located on San Antonio's historic River Walk. On March 8 consortia members will convene to hear updates from ROS-I community leaders, and partners, in the US, Europe, and Asia. At lunch, Phil Freeman, Sr. Tech Fellow from Boeing, will present Why Boeing is Using ROS-Industrial (keynote). Then the Consortium will learn more about technical developments and participate in workshops developing complimenting roadmap around problems to address, and focused technical project brainstorming.
We hope to see a number of you at this event. Reserve your room by February 23rd to take advantage of a fantastic rate of $99/night at the Courtyard San Antonio SeaWorld®/Westover Hills for your accommodations during the ROS-Industrial Consortium Americas meeting on March 7th & 8th. Meeting attendees can extend their stay to include the weekend. San Antonio offers many family friendly amenities, and the Courtyard San Antonio SeaWorld®/Westover Hills is a close drive to nearby theme parks, downtown, and other San Antonio sites. Book your stay via the ROS-I Annual Meeting link, provided by Courtyard San Antonio SeaWorld®/Westover Hills, soon before rooms are gone.
Hotel Address:
Courtyard San Antonio SeaWorld®/Westover Hills
11605 State Highway 151
San Antonio TX 78251
A shuttle will be provided to and from the hotel on March 7th & 8th, departing at 8:00 AM both days, and includes return service to the hotel both days.
Changes to the Consortium and New Strategic Initiatives
Recently a vote was put toward the Consortium Advisory Committee (CAC) on a number of proposed changes, some to the agreement between all the members, and others more strategic in nature. All the items presented were approved, or where there were options, votes on which direction to go. This is a brief summary of the more meaningful changes:
- Creation of a Start-Up Classification for the Consortium to enable smaller firms to join, participate, and contribute to the Consortium, and have a voice in the direction of ROS-Industrial
- An initiative around the creation of "Positions" that will be reflected or support the ROS-Industrial Organizational Structure. There will be more presented on this at the Annual Meeting, but essentially these open source, unpaid positions, will have title, expectations, and come with references, and letters of recommendation for those that contribute.
- The development and introduction of a ROS2 module that will be available as an Advanced Option for Training classes.
- Means to foster and improve OEM engagement, by making it easier to see what are the components we would like to see OEM's take ownership of, and more clearly recognize those that do support their interfaces for the community.
Interesting News Items & Events!
- As stated at the intro, we are migrating from Google Groups for discussion of issues to ROS Discourse effective March 1
- We recently had a guest post by Adam Alami who is stewarding the Quality Assurance initiative within the EU sponsored ROSin Project, this is interesting for all of us, as this program will benefit the whole of ROS/ROS-Industrial not just the EU, so it is important to be aware, and where possible participate!
- Also the first Training Event for 2018 for the Americas has been posted and is open for registration, with an Advanced Option. This event will also be held in San Antonio, at SwRI's campus. Remember, as members, you can host a training event, please contact me if there is interest, and the options available.
- ROS-I AP has also announced their ROS Summer-School Singapore hosted by ROS-I AP!
As always, thank you for your continued engagement and support of ROS-Industrial. We look forward to doing more great things together in 2018!
As always if you have questions and/or comments, we are always available.
Cheers from your local ROS-I Consortium-Americas Program Manager,
Matt Robinson
Southwest Research Institute