<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=windows-1252"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;">[apologies for duplicates]<br><br>=======================================================================<br><div style="text-align: center;">Call for Participation - Intention to Participate</div><div style="text-align: center;">RoCKIn Competition 2014, November 26-30, 2014 (European Robotics Week)</div><div style="text-align: center;">Cité de L’Espace, Toulouse</div><div style="text-align: left;">=======================================================================</div><br>RoCKIn is short for “Robot Competitions Kick Innovation in Cognitive <br>Systems and Robotics” and it is an EU-funded Coordination Action aiming <br>at the promotion of research and education in Robotics through <br>competitions (<a href="http://rockinrobotchallenge.eu">http://rockinrobotchallenge.eu</a>).<br><br>After a successful sequence of two preparatory Camps where more than 70 <br>students did their first steps towards building a team, RoCKIn is now <br>announcing the RoCKIn Competition 2014, to be held in Toulouse in the <br>mind-blowing spaces of the science museum "La Cité de L’Espace” <br>(http://www.cite-espace.com/en), November 26-30, 2014.<br><br>RoCKIn addresses two challenges — RoCKIn@Home and RoCKIn@Work —<br>that take inspiration from the corresponding RoboCup competitions, but focus on <br>benchmarking and networked robot systems. Both challenges require basic <br>navigation capabilities for mobile platforms, advanced (possibly distributed)<br>perception, manipulation and human-robot interaction. <br>RoCKIn@Home focuses on tasks that service robots execute in a real home <br>environment, while the tasks to be performed in RoCKIn@Work target an <br>industrial automation scenario. There will be two competition events <br>during the project lifetime, both during the European Robotics Week, in <br>November 2014 (Toulouse) and 2015 (Lisbon).<br><br>The initial details of the two competitions that will materialize the two <br>challenges in the 2014 edition are available at <br>http://rockinrobotchallenge.eu/rockin_work_nutshell.pdf and <br>http://rockinrobotchallenge.eu/rockin_home_nutshell.pdf. The rulebook for <br>both competitions will be available April 1st, 2014.<br><br>The full schedule fort the registration and qualification process for <br>RoCKIn Competition 2014 is as follows:<br><br>Schedule<br>- Rulebook online: 01 April 2014<br>- Intention to participate deadline: 15 April 2014 (see below)<br>- Application deadline: 09 May 2014 (for all teams, even if no intention <br>to participate was declared)<br>- Decision on Qualified Teams: 31 May 2014<br>- Registration open: 01 June 2014 - 1 July 2014 (for the qualified teams only)<br><br>Intention to Participate<br>All teams interested to participate in RoCKIn Competition 2014 are <br>invited to declare such intention from now up to April 1st, 2014, by <br>filling the online form available at http://rockincompetition.eu which <br>addresses the following questions:<br><br>1. Team name + Affiliation<br>2. Expected number of team members<br>3. Competition where the team will participate;<br>4. Whether teams plan to bring their own robot or not;<br>5. Middleware used for software development.<br><br>Remarks<br>* intention to participate is used by the RoCKIn consortium for an early <br>assessment of the potential number of participants, their hardware and <br>software<br>* there will be no registration costs for qualified teams<br>* the RoCKIn consortium has been working on attracting sponsorship to <br>ensure travel support, but for the moment no travel support should be <br>expected<br>* we are also working with companies that might lend one of their robots <br>during the competition, so as to include the possibility of accepting <br>teams with no robot<br>* the team selection process will take into account the quality and <br>novelty of research proposed by the team, the quality of the robot <br>design, and other materials showing the potential ability of the team to <br>guarantee high level performances during the competition<br>* if the number of teams qualified by May 31st is less than the capacity <br>of the venue, a second round of the application and qualification process <br>may take place.<br></body></html>