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News
The Program has been published.
Registration is open:
That’s the Thursday and Friday immediately preceding IROS, which is happening at the same venue, the Vancouver Convention Centre in Vancouver, Canada. So if you’re planning your travel to IROS, just add a couple of days to the trip so that you can join us for ROSCon in Vancouver, Canada.
Registration for ROSCon 2017 is open:
Note that the early registration deadline is August 1, 2017.
ROSCon 2017 is a chance for ROS developers of all levels, beginner to expert, to spend an extraordinary two days learning from and networking with the ROS community. Get tips and tricks from experts and meet and share ideas with fellow developers.
ROSCon is a developers conference, in the model of PyCon and BoostCon. Following the success of the past five annual ROSCons, this year’s ROSCon will be held in Vancouver, Canada. Similar to previous years, the two-day program will comprise technical talks and tutorials that will introduce you to new tools and libraries, as well as teach you more about the ones you already know. The bulk of the program will be 30-40 minute presentations (some may be longer or shorter).
We aim for ROSCon to represent the entire ROS community, which is global and diverse. Whoever you are, whatever you do, and wherever you do it, if you’re interested in ROS, then we want you to join us at ROSCon. We encourage women, members of minority groups, and members of other under-represented groups to attend ROSCon. We expect all attendees to follow our code of conduct.
The ROSCon planning committee acknowledges that the barriers to attendance for traditionally under-represented groups may be many and varied, and we are striving throughout the planning process to make the event as inclusive and accessible as possible. This year we are proud to continue the ROSCon Diversity Scholarship Program to help make ROSCon 2017 more representative of the global ROS community.
We also welcome suggestions for what else we can do to encourage more participation. Contact us if you have ideas that you’d like to share.
If you don’t want to make a formal presentation, you should still bring your new project or idea to ROSCon and present it in a lightning talk.
There will be an opportunity to give a lightning talk at ROSCon. These are 2-3 minute talks, one session each day (3 minutes in the past but this may be reducing to 2.5 or 2 minutes this year). The way that it works is that you find the designated person during the morning coffee break to sign up for a slot to present that afternoon. It’s first come, first served, and it always fills up. As part of the sign-up, you have the option to provide 2-3 presentation slides that will be loaded onto a common laptop for presentation. Slides are not required, and there’s no particular format. Though it must work on the coordinators laptop so common portable formats such as pdfs are recommended. Videos are also ok but should be edited to fit inside the time limit and should not rely on the audio from the video. Given the time constraint, we would recommend against trying to do a live demo. Last years talks can be seen in this blog post or browse the recordings from past years.
There will also be open space for impromptu hacking sessions and informal presentations.
If you are looking for information on past ROSCons, including past programs, slides and videos of the presentations, see their separate websites.
Sponsors
If you are interested in finding out more about sponsoring ROSCon please contact the organizing committee. Or view our sponsor prospectus.
New this year: Diversity Scholarship Sponsorship
For the first time this year, we are soliciting sponsors to support the ROSCon Diversity Program, which is designed to enable participation in ROSCon by those typically underrepresented in the robotics community to make the conference a more fulfilling experience for all attendees. To get a sense of the impact of last year’s program, which funded travel and lodging costs for 15 scholars from 10 countries, we encourage you to watch this lightning talk from Ahmed Abdalla and Husam Salih, two students at the University of Khartoum in Sudan who are starting a robotics lab under extremely challenging conditions.
For information on this and all of our sponsorship opportunities, check the prospectus.
Location
ROSCon 2017 will be held at the the Vancouver Convention Centre in Vancouver, Canada.
Vancouver has a Trip Planning website to help get around
Here’s a map of the location.
If you plan to explore Vancouver, be sure to “Show your Badge” to receive conference attendee discounts at a variety of locations and attractions.
ROSCon 2017 recognizes the value and productivity of partnerships and have teamed up with IROS 2017 to provide the greatest discounts at nearby hotels. Reservations must be made via the hotel-specific links included below. Discounted rates will be available until the specified cutoff deadline below, or once the room block is full, whichever occurs first.
Vancouver Marriott Pinnacle Downtown – Sold Out
Address: 1128 West Hastings Street Vancouver, BC, V6E 4R5
Distance: 0.2 miles Room Rate: $229 CAD/night (includes in-room internet access) Click here to make your reservations online Wednesday Night Discount Sold Out
Reservations by phone: +1-800-207-4150 (reference IROS) Reservation cut off: 31 August 2017 (5:00 pm Pacific)
Fairmont Pacific Rim
Only available starting the 21st.
Address: 1038 Canada Place Way Vancouver, BC, V6C 0B9
Distance: 0.01 miles Room Rate: $339 CAD/night (includes in-room internet access) Click here to make your reservation online
Reservations by phone: +1-877-900-5350 (reference IROS) Reservation cut off: 25 August 2017 (5:00 pm Pacific)
Fairmont Waterfront
Address: 900 Canada Place Way Vancouver, BC, V6C 3L5
Distance: 0.2 miles Room Rate: $299 CAD/night (includes in-room internet access) Click here to make your reservation online
Reservations by phone: +1-800-441-1414 (reference IROS) Reservation cut off: 24 August 2017 (5:00 pm Pacific)
Fairmont Hotel Vancouver
Address: 900 West Georgia Street Vancouver, BC, V6C 2W6
Room Rate: $249 CAD/night Click here to make your reservation online
Reservations by phone: +1-866-540-4452 (reference IROS) Reservation cut off: 24 August 2017 (5:00 pm Pacific)
For those of you who would like to look at other locations, we suggest searching on All The Rooms, which provides access to local accommodations including airbnb’s and hostels.
Click here for search nearby on All The Rooms
ROSCon 2017 and the Open Source Robotics Foundation do not guarantee or make warranties for All-Rooms providers and assume no liability by providing this resource.
The Convention Services Team at the Vancouver Convention Center, provided the childcare service listed below as a reference for attendees. ROSCon 2017 and the Open Source Robotics Foundation do not guarantee or make warranties for these providers and assume no liability by providing this reference.
Nannies on Call Nannies on Call provide pre-screened nanny service that will come to your hotel room. In addition, they have childcare gear for rent if you decide to travel light. Fees for on-call bookings in Vancouver: $32CAD per booking (agency fee) + $16CAD per hour. Additional fees may apply. Please visit the website to determine additional pricing. Website: http://www.nanniesoncall.com/families/on-call/babysitter-vancouver/
*Rates are quoted as of 23 March and are subject to change. Please confirm with your selected provider.
If you intend to contract childcare services, in addition to contacting the care provider, please email Karly [at] ]MeetGreen.com. ROSCon is committed to creating an inclusive and accessible conference environment. By providing this information, it will allow the Conference to review attendee needs and evaluate where conference resources are deployed.
Weather in Vancouver can be vary significantly. Please be check the weather and be prepared before you depart.
For historical data you can see here.
The current weather is here.
If you require an invitation from the conference organizers to obtain a visa to enter Canada, please fill out this form. Please include your full name and mailing address (for inclusion in the letter; we’ll email you the signed letter).
Program
ROSCon 2017 will be a single track conference. Following review and discussion by the Program Committee, the presentations listed below were accepted for presentation at the conference. There will also be Lightning Talks and a poster session, as well as many opportunities to informally talk with other community members.
The program is subject to change.
(jump to Day 2)
(jump to Day 1)
Call For Proposals
Presentations on all topics related to ROS are invited. Examples include introducing attendees to a ROS package or library, exploring how to use tools, manipulating sensor data, and applications for robots.
Women, members of minority groups, and members of other under-represented groups are encouraged to submit presentation proposals to ROSCon.
Proposals will be reviewed by a program committee that will evaluate fit, impact, and balance.
We cannot offer presentations that are not proposed! If there is a topic on which you would like to present, please propose it. If you have an idea for an important topic that you do not want to present yourself, please post it for discussion at ROS Discourse.
All ROS-related work is invited. Topics of interest include:
Best practices
New packages
Robot-specific development
Robot simulation
Safety and security
Embedded systems
Product development & commercialization
Research and education
Enterprise deployment
Community organization and direction
Testing, quality, and documentation
Robotics competitions and collaborations
To get an idea of the content and tone of ROSCon, check out the slides and videos from previous years.
A session proposal must include:
Title
Presenter (name and affiliation)
Recommended duration: Short (~20 minutes) or Long (~40 minutes)
Summary [maximum 100 words]: to be used in advertising the presentation
Description [maximum 1000 words]: outline, goals (what will the audience learn?), pointers to packages to be discussed
Please be sure to include in your proposal enough information for the program committee to evaluate the importance and impact of your presentation. Links to publicly available resources, including code repositories and demonstration videos, are especially helpful.
More Info
Elizabeth Croft
Tully Foote
Roberta Friedman
Ryan Gariepy
Brian Gerkey
Deanna Hood
Niharika Arora (Fetch Robotics)
Elizabeth Croft (UBC)
Denise Eng (Clearpath Robotics)
Tully Foote (Open Robotics)
Ryan Gariepy (Clearpath Robotics)
Brian Gerkey (Open Robotics)
Deanna Hood (Open Robotics)
Kaijen Hsiao (Mayfield Robotics)
Ingo Lütkebohle (Bosch)
Ian McMahon (Rethink Robotics)
Allison Thackston (Toyota Research Institute)
Deanna Hood
The ROSCon 2017 organizing committee aims for ROSCon to represent the entire ROS community, which is diverse and global. In addition to promoting technology that is open source, we also strive to ensure that our communities themselves are as open and accessible as possible, since we recognize that diversity benefits the ROS ecosystem as a whole.
Whoever you are, whatever you do, and wherever you do it, if you’re interested in ROS, then we want you to join us at ROSCon. To help reduce the financial barriers to conference attendance, the ROSCon organizing committee is offering a number of scholarships to members of traditionally underrepresented groups in the tech community.
For more information please see the announcement on the ROS blog.
ROSCon has been held annually since 2012. If you’d like to know more we have archives of all the past programs with recordings of the talks and most of the slides. The sites can be found at the locations below.
ROSCon 2016 Seoul, Korea
ROSCon 2015 Hamburg, Germany
ROSCon 2014 Chicago, USA
ROSCon 2013 Stuttgart, Germany
ROSCon 2012 St. Paul, USA
To ensure a safe environment for everybody we expect all participants to follow the conference code of conduct.
#ROSCon2017 #ROSCon @osrfoundation @rosorg
