[p2p-research] Willow Garage announces PR2 Beta program

[Ryan]

  Sent to you by Ryan via Google Reader: Willow Garage announces PR2
Beta program via Artificial Intelligence and Robotics by Awesom-o on
1/16/10
Willow Garage are doing exactly as they promised a few years ago and
earlier today they announced the Personal Robot 2 (PR2) beta program
opening the door for scientific institutions worldwide to get free
access to one robot.

The company is now accepting proposals from any interested groups of
researchers from anywhere in the world for the opportunity to be given
full and free access to one PR2 for research in home, open source,
humanoid robotics. This is the same robot that a few months ago was
demonstrated to navigate flawlessly through an office-like environment
opening doors, and seeking out power outlets for recharging its
batteries (learn how the PR2 works.) Other than the hardware, Willow
Garage are also putting a lot of resources behind the development of
the Robot Operating System (ROS) and OpenCV. What they want from the
researchers who are eventually selected to receive the robots is, other
than to do some great research, to develop lots of open source software.

The call for proposals states,

By making the PR2 platforms available to researchers and developers,
Willow Garage's objectives for this beta program are fourfold:

- enable scientific breakthroughs in personal robotics
- expand the open source robotics community
- develop reusable components and tools
- explore new applications for personal robotsWillow Garage’s goal is
to facilitate progress in the area of personal robotics, and to develop
a world-wide community of researchers and developers contributing to
open-source. Willow Garage works to facilitate progress in the area of
personal robotics by sponsoring community-building activities and
events, internship programs and visiting scholars.

Well done and good luck to all who apply. You can read the CFP
here.Scientific Memory Games: Improve your cognitive abilities.
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