Note: As of January 1st, 2013, the Webots newsletter has been replaced by the Webots Blog for news about Webots and Cyberbotics.

July 2011

Webots™ Newsletter News for the Webots™ user community. July 2011

Webots to be used in ShanghAI lectures 2011 We are pleased to announce that Webots is going to be used in practical exercises of the ShanghAI Lectures that will take place from September 29th to December 15th, 2011. These lectures about Natural and Artificial Intelligence will be held at the University of Zurich, Switzerland and the University of Salford, UK, and broadcast via videoconference to Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China and a number of universities across the planet. The lectures are complemented by teamwork exercises; teams consist of three to five students from different universities. Webots to be used in Neural Dynamics Approach to Cognitive Robotics Summer School 2011 Webots is going to be used in practical exercises of the Neural Dynamics Approach to Cognitive Robotics Summer School that will take place on September 4-10, 2011 in Guimarães, Portugal. The school will provide tutorials and practical sessions on neural dynamics and its application for the design and modeling of embodied and situated cognitive systems. It is intended for students at advanced undergraduate or graduate level, postdocs and faculty members in the areas of embodied cognition, cognitive science and robotics.   CoaX helicopter simulation in Webots ETHZ/ASL in collaboration with Skybotix developed a Webots simulation of the CoaX helicopter robot. Several movies were posted on YouTube that demonstrate the simulation model taking off, flying around, turning and landing. The Webots simulation model was calibrated against the real robot as illustrated in one of the movies. Webots at DARwIn-OP tutorial at IROS 2011 A tutorial on the Robotis DARwIn-OP humanoid robot will be held at IROS (San Francisco) on September 25th, 2011. It will include several hands-on sessions, one of them focusing the use of the Webots simulation model of the robot. As shown on this video, the DARwIn-OP simulation in Webots features a complete dynamics model of the robot (with proper mass distribution and servo models) able to play back the DARwIn-OP motion files through its 20 DOF. It also includes the simulation of the LEDs, gyro, accelerometer and camera. Finally, it is interfaced with the DARwIn-OP gait generator library so that you can easily make it walk and turn at different paces. Robotstadium finals running this week! The Webots-based Robotstadium online competition is running its finals this week, in parallel with the real RoboCup. Based on the official rules of the RoboCup Standard Platform League (SPL), it gathers 15 teams coming from various universities around the world. The  winner is likely to be Daniel Lee (from UPenn, USA), unless Borregos Nao (Mexico) or another challenger pops up with a last minute surprise. Reminder: Rat's Life competition running continuously The Webots-based Rat's Life competition is currently running continuously on-line. The current best player is still the same as during the previous edition: Ratatouille, by Manuel Godbert, appears to be really invincible on this SLAM programming benchmark. You can have a look the at videos to convince yourself that this Java program is a really clever beast. Ratchou confirms his challenger position by standing at rank 2. The competition is always open to new challengers, free of charge. Robotics teachers are encouraged to include this competition in their curricula.

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