French “Festival des Robots”

May 24, 2007 at 12:41 pm - Tags: France, Events

The “Festival des Robots” is taking place right now in Mantes-la-Jolie, France. It will end next sunday and its a first in the country. The event aims to help people understand robotics and mechatronics, thanks to a wide range of animations, round tables and student competitions.

I was there yesterday and it was quite fun. The event targets a very large audience, especially children, and it succeeds in presenting robotics in an entertaining way. Applications are quite diverse and probably help people understand many aspects of robots.

On the negative side, I am afraid this Festival shows how late France is in this field. If i compare what I saw yesterday to the big robots events I attended four years ago in Japan, the gap is simply… dramatic. I regret the lack of humanoid robots or existing domestic machines from around the world. At least, a few movies, explaining what’s going on in other countries, would have been useful.

Still, this Festival is a very good initiative. I hope it will have success and will become an important, yearly event.

Below are a few pictures I took on Day 1 of the Festival:
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Robogames vs. Robocup

May 4, 2007 at 6:06 pm - Tags: Events, US

On my right, Robogames, that will take place in San Francisco in June. It will feature no less than 83 competitions, “including 18 different events just for walking humanoids”.

On my left, RoboCup 2007 will take place in Atlanta this July. As usual, it will host many events with robots of all shapes and sizes performing soccer games.

On the one hand, this is no doubt a (good) sign that robots are increasingly popular in the US. On the other hand, I’m not sure it’s such a good idea to place two very similar events almost at the same time. When I read that Robogames will host the “12th annual Robot World Cup”, created by “world’s oldest robot soccer organization”, while Robocup’s 7th edition will focus, as usual, on “competitive robotic football”, I wonder if robots fans needed all this confusion. The competition between both events is not new, but maybe now would be a good time to end up this battle, and give birth to a unique, international and huge event?

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