ROSCon 2019: Call for Workshop Proposals

ROSCon is expanding! In past years, members of the community could propose only talks. This year, we are extending the conference format so that you can submit:

  • Talks - As in previous years, the standard presentation format will be a talk, with the presenter(s) talking live in front of slides/video, with a brief question period at the end, fitting into a 10, 20 or 30 minute time slot.
  • Videos - One new format is the video presentation, with up to 2 minutes of self-contained audio-visual content, featured alongside the talks in the program. Videos will be presented without live narration or Q/A afterward.
  • Workshops - Also new this year are workshops, in which the presenter(s) will provide a hand-on in-depth look at a particular topic in a more interactive format, over the course of up to 3 hours.

This yearā€™s ROSCon will also include invited panels and keynote speakers.

Today we are opening submissions for workshops. Please submit your workshop proposals here, no later than May 22nd, 2019.

We cannot offer content that is 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 here on Discourse.

General Content Guidelines:

All topics related to ROS are invited. Example topics include:

  • New packages / frameworks
  • Insights / improvements for existing packages
  • Case studies on unique ROS deployments / use cases
  • Developments for specific robots, sensors, platforms
  • Competitions / collaborations / initiatives
  • ROS in commercial / research / teaching environments
  • Standards / best practices / development tools

To get an idea of the content and tone of ROSCon, check out the slides and videos from previous years.

Review Criteria

All submissions will be reviewed by the program committee to evaluate:

  • Relevance to the ROS Community - The proposed content should use ROS in a substantial way, but beyond that, the work must also be relevant and compelling to a general ROS audience. Writing a ROS driver for a specific piece of hardware is an excellent contribution to the community, but describing the intricacies of its firmware may not be relevant to this audience. Furthermore, content should be relevant to a global and diverse community.
  • Quality of Content/Impact - We encourage proposals to contain big ideas with high impact. It is preferable that proposals have a demonstrable quality as opposed to being purely theoretical.
  • Quality of Presentation - Articulating your ideas clearly and grammatically is a key prerequisite for giving a compelling live presentation.
  • Originality/Novelty - Content should be original and not something that has already been heard before. Will this be the 40th talk on a particular topic at ROSCon? Or are you presenting something new?
  • Open Source Availability - Because we are an open-source community, proposals for which the underlying code and other content is available under an open source license have a greater chance of being accepted. It is not a hard requirement, but proposals focused on proprietary systems should contribute in some other way to the community. Promises of future release are difficult to evaluate, so having your content released at the time of proposal submission is preferred.

Additional consideration will be given to balancing the subject matter and duration of presentation.

We encourage proposals from presenters of all backgrounds and experience levels.

If you have any questions about whether your subject matter is appropriate, feel free to post on Discourse or contact the ROSCon 2019 Organizing Committee at roscon-2019-oc-full@openrobotics.org.

Workshop Submission Information

Workshop proposals must include

  • Title (maximum 70 characters)
  • Presenter(s) (name and affiliation)
  • Summary - for public consumption, used in the program schedule (maximum 100 words)
  • Description - outline and goals, for review by the program committee. Describe the intended audience and what resources (if any) would be required. Please be sure to include enough information in your proposal for the program committee to evaluate the above review criteria.

Accepted presenters will be required to provide their materials 5 weeks before ROSCon for content review to ensure the quality of the event. Content that does not pass review may be removed from the schedule at the discretion of the program committee.

Deadlines

Submit your workshop proposal by May 22, 2019 here.

The opening of submissions for talks and for videos will announced separately.

David Lu!! (Locus Robotics)
Melonee Wise (Fetch Robotics)
Program Co-Chairs

4 Likes

I hope that you prioritise workshops that are going to be very interactive, or even tutorials, rather than mini-conferences.

Things I canā€™t present myself but want to see:

3 Likes

Thanks for organizing this @DLu! Iā€™ll go ahead and share my wish list below:

Acutronic Robotics and PickNik are the main forces so far behind the moveit2 port. From Acutronic Roboticsā€™ side, weā€™d be happy to provide an interactive tutorial here demonstrating the capabilities of MoveIt 2 with MARA during ROSCon 2019. Beyond moveit2, thereā€™re probably others doing interesting work which should be covered as part of this workshop. Iā€™ve just announced the creation of the Manipulation WG so Iā€™d go ahead and suggest that the tutorial should be called something like ā€œROS 2 manipulation workshopā€ which should group both the moveit2 effort but also, hopefully, other related projects.

Letā€™s see the reaction and weā€™ll then coordinate to make a proposal :slight_smile:

We will propose one. :slightly_smiling_face:

3 Likes

@vmayoral we will propose one too.

1 Like

Can you shed a bit more light on how workshops will happen? I would surmise that the schedule cannot afford very many 3 hour blocksā€¦

Some questions:

  • Will the conference become multi-track?
  • Will there be a dedicated workshop day, before 31st or after 2nd?
  • If not, will all workshops take place in the same time-slot?
1 Like

(subject to change) Weā€™re planning for a small number of workshops to run in parallel in the same slot in the afternoon of October 30th, the day prior to the start of the traditional presentations.

1 Like

It would be great if that could be fixed soon. I need to plan travel and might need an extra night in the hotel to make that.

Understood. Weā€™ll should be able to get a draft program published early next month (after weā€™ve received and reviewed the workshop proposals).

I agree with @gbiggs that I have to take this into account when making travel arrangements and so it would be great if the exact details were known soon.

btw, this may be unusual, but I usually make travel arrangements before getting acceptance notifications. It often saves a lot of money to be earlyā€¦

May I suggest having a prominent notice about this on the ROSCon site, once youā€™ve made a decision? Likely, people will not expect the conference to essentially start a bit early!

Seconding this :slightly_smiling_face:

Great idea! I just started (a bit late) the discussion for a MoveIt 2 Workshop:

1 Like

We would like to propose HCP (heterogeneous computing platform) for Autonomous vehicle as a topic.

ROSCon 2019 Workshop Schedule

We are happy to announce that the workshops for ROSCon 2019 will take place on Wednesday October 30th, the day before the main conference event at the same venue from 2pm to 5pm. Weā€™ve just updated the program on the website with this information. Please stay tuned for more information. We will be announcing the selected workshops and how to register for them in an upcoming announcement.

Workshop Submission Deadline Today!

One quick reminder, if you havenā€™t submitted your workshop proposal, todayā€™s the last day!

@tfoote

any registration needed to participate in workshop?
or we could just jump in the room on that day?

thanks,

Registration is indeed required for the ROSCon workshops. You can select a specific workshop as an add-on to regular conference registration: https://roscon.regfox.com/roscon-2019.

@gerkey

thanks for the information!