Conferences, Contests, and Hackathons this Fall
Upcoming Robotics Contests, Hackathons, and Conferences
I have been working with the Petoi Bittle AI Vision module the last week. The post on the vision module is not ready yet; so in the meanwhile I wanted to update you on the upcoming material in this newsletter over the next 3 months.
But first, and update on our latest video: 3 Bots Hunt for a Charger, which has been going viral on YouTube and has been watched close to 600 times as the time of this article. Watching the three bots together is very entertaining, so I would rate it as a must watch!
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Petoi Robotics Challenge
It is back to school season in the United States and many parts of the world. Speaking of Petoi, they have released a Robotics Challenge and Showcase Contest with many interesting categories. Petoi’s aim is to help you enjoy some time with your robot, and perhaps help you bring some skills to the Petoi Community. The contest runs through October 8, and the winner will be announced on October 13. To participate. you need to create a video of your robot, write about it, and post it on social media. Details are at the above link.
Embodied AI Hackathon
Seeed Studio, nVidia, and Hugging Face are hosting the next Embodied AI Hackathon in October at two locations: Shenzhen, China, and the Bay Area, US. This hackathon will let you work hands-on with the Hugging Face LeRobot SO-ARM 101 and power it with the NVIDIA AGX Thor/ NVIDIA Jetson AGX Orin Developer Kit. You need to submit a project idea and fill a form to register. Successful teams/contestants are provided a SO-ARM101 to start working on the project from home, and bring it for the demo on the day of the hackathon. You would need some background with the SO-ARM101 or other robot to be accepted. Folks who have worked with Petoi’s firmware are a great match! Please apply if interested.
International Conference on Humanoid Robots
The end of September will see two major academic conferences, the Conference on Robot Learning (CoRL) and the IEEE-RAS 24th International Conference on Humanoid Robots (Humanoids) collocated at Seoul, South Korea. The interest in robotics and humanoids has spiked so much that both these conferences have sold out on registration because they share a single day at the same venue on September 30. Humanoids also features a Robotics Fashion show which should be very entertaining. There is also a Humanoids Competion which will feature many humanoids including the Unitree G1.
Humanoids Summit 2025
Last year, we brought you live notes from the first edition of the Humanoids Summit. This year, the Humanoids Summit will repeat at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA. This summit brings together many of the leading minds and manufactures of Humanoids. The last year’s conference had an incredible list of speakers. The show area had some awesome displays of humanoids and hands.
We can confirm that we will be attending the Humanoids Summit 2025 in person, and will report live from there. Thank you to our paid subscribers whose generous funding makes this possible.
We will be reporting on these events in this forum. Most of the free stuff is posted in our notes, while paid subscribers get access to detailed posts on this newsletter. Sharing this post with an interested friend or family member goes a long way in helping me. Thank you!