As part of the IEEE RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots in Birmingham, U.K., last month, the awards committee decided to organize a fun photo contest. Participants submitted 39 photos showing off their humanoids in all kinds of poses and places. I was happy to be one of the judges, along with Sabine Hauert from the University of Bristol and Robohub, and with Giorgio Metta, the conference’s awards chair, overseeing our selection. All photos were posted on Facebook and Twitter, and users were invited to vote on them. Sabine and I then looked at the photos with the most votes and scored them for originality, creativity, photo structure, and tech or fun factor. Here are the winners of the two categories, “Best Humanoid Photo” and “Best Funny Humanoid Photo,” and all the amazing submissions.
The winner for “Best Humanoid Photo” features iCub in a Hamlet-inspired pose. The photo, titled “To be, or not to be,” was submitted by Pedro Vicente from VisLab in Lisbon, Portugal. Congratulations Pedro!
Title: “To be, or not to be”
Robot: iCub
Photo: Pedro Vicente, VisLab@ISR-Lisboa
The three finalists for “Best Humanoid Photo,” in no particular order, were:
Title: “One who doesn’t throw the dice can never expect to score a six. One who doesn’t throw the ball can never expect to learn to juggle.”
Robot: NICO (Neuro-Inspired COmpanion)
Photo: Erik Strahl, Universität Hamburg (University of Hamburg, Germany)
Title: “Ready to explore (TORO accompanied by LRU, two experimental robots for verifying concepts for planetary exploration)”
Robot: Toro and LRU
Photo: Maximo A. Roa, Christian Ott, Johannes Englsberger, Bernd Henze, Alexander Werner, Oliver Porges, DLR – German Aerospace Center
Title: “Sweaty goes Japan”
Robot: Sweaty
Photo: Heitz, Benjamin, University Offenburg
The winner for “Best Funny Humanoid Photo” was titled “If only I had a self-driving car” and featured a robot called SABIAN sitting in the driver’s seat. The photo was submitted by Marco Moscato from the Biorobotics Institute, Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna. Congratulations Marco!
Title: “If only I had a self-driving car.”
Robot: SABIAN (Sant’Anna BIped humANoid)
Photo: Marco Moscato, The Biorobotics Institute, Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna
The three finalists for “Best Funny Humanoid Photo,” in no particular order, were:
Title: “NAOs’ Kindergarten :)”
Robot: Nao
Photo: Mohsen Kaboli, Technical University of Munich (TUM)
Title: “Ain’t easier than ImageNet”
Robot: iCub
Photo: Lorenzo Natale, Elisa Maiettini, Vadim Tikhanoff, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia
Title: “The Humanoids deadline is in six hours—I need those results!”
Robots: Talos and Nao
Photo: Aljaž Kramberger, Barry Ridge, Robert Bevec, Miha Deniša, Miha Dežman, Rok Goljat and Andrej Gams, Jožef Stefan Institute
You can see all the other photos below. Congratulations to all the participants, and to Serena Ivaldi from INRIA and the other members of Humanoids awards committee for the organization!
Title: “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” (千里之行，始於足下)
Robot: SABIAN (Sant’Anna BIped humANoid)
Photo: Marco Moscato, The Biorobotics Institute, Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna
Title: “Ready for the match of the year: Baxter VS McGregor”
Robot: Baxter
Photo: Alessandro Albini and Simone Denei, DIBRIS (University of Genoa, Italy)
Title: “Valkyrie preparing to use a drill”
Robot: Valkyrie
Photo: Nicholas Thoma, NASA
Title: “DYROS JET Ready for Action”
Robot: DYROS JET
Photo: Jaehoon Sim, Seoul National University, South Korea
Title: “What’s up bro”
Robot: DYROS JET
Photo: Jaehoon Sim, Seoul National University, South Korea
Title: “JET prefers riding”
Robot: DYROS JET
Photo: Jaehoon Sim, Seoul National University, South Korea
Title: “Walking to the future”
Robot: DYROS RED
Photo: Mathew Schwartz, Seoul National University
Title: “Machine Learning”
Robot: DYROS JET
Photo: Jaehoon Sim, Seoul National University, South Korea
Title: “The Creation of Vizzy”
Robot: iCub and Vizzy
Photo: João Avelino, VisLab, Institute for Systems and Robotics, Instituto Superior Técnico
Title: “Dialogue of generations”
Robots: HRP2 and Romeo
Photo: Mehdi Benallegue, CNRS-LAAS, France
Title: “Discussing the fate of humanity”
Robots: Romeo and HRP2
Photo: Mehdi Benallegue, CNRS-LAAS, France
Title: “NimbRo-OP2 vs. Sweaty (RoboCup 2017 AdultSize Final)”
Robots: NimbRo-OP2
Photo: Sven Behnke, University of Bonn
Title: “NimbRo-OP2 kicking”
Robot: NimbRo-OP2
Photo: Sven Behnke, University of Bonn
Title: “They grow up so fast”
Robot: NimbRo-OP2
Photo: Sven Behnke, University of Bonn
Title: “Posing with NimbRo-OP2”
Robot: NimbRo-OP2
Photo: Aimee Han, ROBOTIS
Title: “Yes, I’m drunk.”
Robot: iCub
Photo: Daniele Pucci, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia
Title: “I’ve lost my mind for the conference”
Robot: iCub
Photo: Daniele Pucci, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia
Title: “Don’t look at me, I’m naked!!”
Robot: iCub
Photo: Daniele Pucci, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia
Title: “Discobolus”
Robot: Talos
Photo: Carlos Viva, PAL Robotics
Title: “Walk like an Egyptian”
Robot: Talos
Photo: PAL Robotics
Title: “Soccer Champion”
Robot: Nao
Photo: Mathew Schwartz, New Jersey Institute of Technology
Title: “Brace yourselves. iCub is coming.”
Robot: iCub
Photo: Marco Randazzo, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT)
Title: “Blessed among women: life is not so hard when you are a broken robot”
Robot: iCub
Photo: Brice Clement, INRIA Nancy, France
Title: “Fainting robot (TORO getting tired of doing experiments)”
Robot: Toro
Photo: Maximo A. Roa, Christian Ott, Johannes Englsberger, Bernd Henze, Alexander Werner, Oliver Porges, DLR – German Aerospace Center
Title: “Challenging Yoga pose (Toro getting ready for transportation)”
Robot: Toro
Photo: Maximo A. Roa, Christian Ott, Johannes Englsberger, Bernd Henze, Alexander Werner, Oliver Porges, DLR – German Aerospace Center
Title: “Pick and install (TORO picks a part for installation on an airplane frame – project COMANOID)”
Robot: Toro
Photo: Maximo A. Roa, Christian Ott, Johannes Englsberger, Bernd Henze, Alexander Werner, Oliver Porges, DLR – German Aerospace Center
Title: “I could work faster, if only I had ten fingers.”
Robot: Nao
Photo: Aljaž Kramberger, Barry Ridge, Robert Bevec, Miha Deniša, Miha Dežman, Rok Goljat and Andrej Gams, Jožef Stefan Institute
Title: “(He)iCub and “integration””
Robots: Nao and HeiCub
Photo: Yue Hu, Optimization, Robotics and Biomechanics (ORB), ZITI, Heidelberg University
Title: “I want a head” – the (!)sad story of a headless iCub”
Robots: Nao and HeiCub
Photo: Yue Hu, Optimization, Robotics and Biomechanics (ORB), ZITI, Heidelberg University
Title: If I had a robot…. – Elementary school students draw what they would like a robot do for them.
Robots: Pepper, iCub, Nao
Photo: Wibke Borngesser, Institute for Cognitive Systems, TU München
Title: Sweaty supports exhausted coach during RoboCup Soccer
Robot: Sweaty
Photo: Sandra Lutz-Vogt, Univ. Appl. Sci. Offenburg
