About the project
You have seen that there are many robotic contests, robotic workshops, and online robotic resources. But for R2T2 we take the next step with technology to allow us to do much more.
The Thymio robot, which was developed at the EPFL, inspired us. This robot can be controlled and programmed from anywhere on the planet, which allows people to collaborate and solve complex tasks with simple programming instructions.
So why not go further, as we are used to doing at the EPFL and within the NCCR Robotics community to bring together children from all over the planet and together solve a complex task, called a mission. The themes of these missions are inspired by space robotics, and the ideas and preliminary tests were done with the International School of Geneva and during a summer camp with a special MINT class from the school of Köniz, Bern in 2015.
During the missions, the participants control their robots remotely by observing the results of the remote commands sent on the video streams. As soon as the program has been sent to the robot, the robot executes it immediately. The challenge of the missions is that the students cannot see their robots activated immediately because the steamed videos have a delay of 30 seconds. Meaning, it is impossible to stop the robot in time to avoid damage if the robot is not programmed correctly. Therefore participants must choose their strategy well and segment the mission into small steps to avoid serious mistakes.
Everybody
All those who would like to carry out a collaborative robotics mission with their team without traveling far can participate in the missions proposed by the project.
Ages
The activity is mostly designed for children from 10 to 14 years old, but it is open for Children from 8 years old to adults who could have a lot of fun by participating.
The participants will gain competences in the following domains:
Communication (using possibly one or several international language)
All communication takes place on the online chat.
Collaborative experience on a technical task, in order to create something together
All teams have a common goal that they must succeed: no competition, only collaboration!
A collaborative experience with team members who have different skills.
The participants of a team should share the following roles:
- responsible for the communication
- responsible for strategy
- programming managers
A different programming experience where thinking before programming is important!
The 30 second delay obliges participants to do local tests with robots located near them. In order to make good tests, it is necessary to reproduce the environment and the situation similar to those of their remote robot.
Publications
F. Mondada et al., "R2T2: Robotics to integrate educational efforts in South Africa and Europe", in International Journal of Advanced Robotic Systems, October 2016
Press 2015
Réportage (en anglais) équipe à Genève, Suisse, SWI
Team Nancy, France, dans "L'Est Républicain"
Team Fribourg, Suisse, dans La Liberté
Team Sion sur canal9
Mars Station EPFL sur Le Matin
R2T2 sur Oxford Virtual
Team Russia dans le journal de Korolev
Team Russia aux nouvelles de la TV de la ville de Korolev
Team Geneva, Suisse, dans Le Temps
Team South Africa dans aBr Magazine
L'évènement dans le Flash, journal interne de l'EPFL (p.25)
"Alunni al pc, "blitz" su Marte", La Libertà (Italy) 20-11-2015.
Team South Africa dans UKZNDABA online, la newsletter de l'université Kwazulu-Natal
Team South Africa dans le magazine African Fusion
Team South Africa dans le magazine abr Move
Reportage vidéo sur l'évènement par SwissInfo (en anglais)
Article dans worldcrunch (en anglais)
Press 2016
Equipe HES-SO Valais, Suisse, dans "Nouvelliste"
Equipe HES-SO Valais, Suisse, sur la radio de RTS
Equipe Stripes Coop Soc. Onlus - Cascina Triulza, Italie, dans "Corriere sociale"
Equipe Stripes Coop Soc. Onlus - Cascina Triulza, Italie, dans "Askanews"
Equipe Stripes Coop Soc. Onlus - Cascina Triulza, Italie, dans "Yahoo! Notizie"
Equipe Stripes Coop Soc. Onlus - Cascina Triulza, Italie, dans "AgenPress"
Equipe Stripes Coop Soc. Onlus - Cascina Triulza, Italie, sur "Radio Popolare" (3:45-17:20)
Equipe Stripes Coop Soc. Onlus - Cascina Triulza, Italie, sur "Radio 24" (36:50-43:22)
Equipe UKZN, Afrique du Sud, sur "eNews Direct"
Equipe UKZN, Afrique du Sud, sur "UKZNDABA online"
If you have any questions or comments, please don't hesitate to contact us!
You can also subscribe to our newsletter to be informed about our future missions and projects.
Copyright © – R2T2-Collaboration 2020