Call for Participation


This is a call for participation for Veni Vidi Vici 2011,
the sixth iCub Summer School.   The school is a hackathon 
for robotics researchers interested in any combination of 
humanoids, free software, open-source hardware, and 
Italian beaches.  Those who would like to participate 
should email their name, affiliation, and a CV (or 
relevant website URL) to:
  vvv11-admin@icub.org 
no later than:
  May 11th, 2011
Places are limited. Your application will be acknowledged
within two business days, and notification of placement
will be made on May 16th, 2011.  If placed, you will be 
expected to register and pay by June 15th. The 
school website is available at:
  http://www.icub.org/summerschool
Best regards,
  The VVV 2011 team

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CALL FOR PARTICIPATION
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VVV 2011, the Sixth iCub Summer School

Aim:
The iCub Summer School, "Veni Vidi Vici", serves to
consolidate and disseminate skills in software engineering
for humanoid robots. Our goal is to foster long-lived
academic collaboration on robot software across the
boundaries and lifetimes of individual projects. 
The iCub summer school is a peer-to-peer event; there are 
no lectures, and no strict division of instructors and 
students. All participants are expected to be competent 
C/C++ programmers with an interest in working
with others (and an agenda of their own). The school
schedule will be organized flexibly around informal
tutorials from participants on modules they are working on
or interested in.

Format:
The school is structured as a series of hands-on practical
laboratory sessions, and informal talks.  Two full iCub 
humanoids will be available for participants to work with.
We will have a dedicated local network, with wireless. 
Participants are expected to bring their own laptop.

Topics:
Motor control, robot design, image processing,
communication, software engineering, machine learning,
free software, open-source hardware.

Location:
This year the school will be hosted at the Mediaterraneo
Foundation in Sestri Levante, Liguria, Italy.  See the
school website for venue details.  Comments on this venue
from other years -

  Nieves: A really beautiful experience! One of the best in 
  my life. I have learnt a lot about robotics, humanity and 
  friendship! Thank you very much!

  Serena: my first iCub summer school .. really hope the 
  first of many! I had so much fun, thanks to all!

  Giacomo: Great experience! I really enjoyed accessing such 
  advanced robots, and working together with great guys. 
  The location was beautiful too. 

  Federico: I will never forget this experience. A unique 
  experience for life!! Working with a complete 
  free-software/hardware humanoid robot it's an honor, and 
  also in this nice place with great, friendly, collaborative 
  and enthusiastic people with such a weather. Just amazing. 
  I would like to give a lot of thanks to the organizers, 
  they did a great job again. (And the food was the great!) 
  And ..., and... . Hope to see you soon!

  Alexis: Such an amazing time with such wonderful people! 
  Interesting discussions, helpful and giving people and an 
  awesome location. :) Thanks everyone! It was a good time 
  living deeply and intensively, just what I needed! I hope to 
  see you again soon. Pura vida! 

  Zenon: thank you for organizing this great summer school and 
  putting so much time and effort into it....so much to learn 
  and so much fun at such an awesome spot! viva vvv for many 
  more years to come!

  Vincent: "Nice and creative people"+"Dedicated organizers"+
  "Perfect location"+"Wonderful robot and software" = VVV08. 
  Thanks for this well balanced summer school. 

Timetable:
We begin the school in the morning of Monday, July 18 2011,
and finish in the evening of Wednesday, July 27 2011 (with
people leaving during Thursday, July 28 2011). Sunday the
24th will be a free day (individual participants may
choose an alternate free day).  This year, the summer school 
has the good fortune to be co-located with a workshop on 
multi-sensory space perception (19-21 July), and we will be
sharing our room with the workshop speakers on the afternoon 
of the 19th. Four talks will be offered to the school 
participants.


Cost:
The summer school registration fee is 1300 euro. This fee
includes the school itself, food, and accommodation. Rooms
are shared between two people. A single room is 300 euro
extra (and subject to availability).

Our sponsors:
This year, the school is sponsored by ITALK, a project to
develop artificial embodied agents able to acquire complex
behavioural, cognitive, and linguistic skills through 
individual and social learning.
  http://www.italkproject.org
The school is also sponsored by the Italian Institute of
Technology, department of Robotics, Brain, and Cognitive
Sciences.
  http://www.rbcs.iit.it
In its formative years, the school was funded by RobotCub, a 
project to study cognition through robotics. Along the way, 
this project created a completely open design for a 
humanoid robot - open hardware, open software, open mind: 
the iCub. 
  http://www.robotcub.org
  http://www.icub.org