2018-Workshop

The VIII International RoboCup MSL International Workshop will be held in Aveiro, Portugal from 22-24 November 2018, during the European Robotics Week.

More info, including schedule and registration instructions can be found on http://robotica.ua.pt/cambada/

Similarly to what happened in the most recent years, the overall purpose of the MSL workshop is mainly twofold: on one hand to promote knowledge transfer among teams, by providing a dedicated space and time specifically for that purpose and, on the other hand, to increase and facilitate a wider discussion regarding the roadmap and future challenges for the league. The experience gathered in the past events have shown that these issues can be more thoroughly and deeply achieved through the participation of teams in a workshop framework than by simply resorting to other ways of dissemination such as sharing experience and information over the cloud.

Leaving a time gap between the normal yearly organized RoboCup world tournament and this workshop, but keeping it within the time frame normally dedicated to discuss and approve the rules and regulations changes for the next year, allow teams to mature the outcome of their own experience during the tournament, and bring to this workshop fresh and revised ideas to share with each other. And all these can be achieved while giving them enough time afterwards to start preparing for the next year’s challenges.

MSL is known to be a quite challenging league in what concerns the required input in terms of both financial and human requirements. Apart from the worldwide event and the regional yearly organized events, this workshop provides an excellent opportunity to support new teams to grow faster, by taking advantage of the accumulated knowledge developed over the years by the teams that are in the league for a longer period of time. Written knowledge, in the form of technical and scientific documents, are of essential nature, but practical experience is sometimes better transmitted and understood when teams are brought together in such an event.

The opportunity to have a more wide, face to face discussion regarding next transitions in terms of technological development, by carefully and thoroughly discussing future rule changes among the teams, is also of utmost importance, since it is quite important to balance the need of significant progress with the perception that, given its human and financial costs, this is a league that can very easily be brought to extinction. Promoting large scale challenges is important, but they have to be seen in a way that does not simply end up pushing part, or most of the teams, out of the competition. And the MSL workshop is a perfect time/space for this discussion.

Thanks for your consideration.