The fifth annual National Robotics Week event here in the U.S. will be held April 5-13, 2014. This is going to be the last time we remind you, we promise. It's an easy promise to make, because April 5 is like, tomorrow!
And this year we have something special for you: IEEE Spectrum teamed up with iRobot and Georgia Tech's Institute for Robotics and Intelligent Machines to create a cool set of robot trading cards (pictured above).
We modeled them after baseball cards, and each features a robot with "stats" and other info. Check out the 10 awesome robots we chose for this year's "team" (you can also download the set as a PDF and print all cards). If your favorite robot is not there, don't worry—we plan to make more cards next year.
And for even more robots (158, to be exact), don't forget about IEEE Spectrum's award-winning, internationally acclaimed Robots for iPad app, which you can get for FREE on iTunes.
National Robotics Week 2014 promises to be a blast, so get involved! Here are some highlights for this year, hot off the press release:
- Robot Zoo, Cambridge, MA (April 19) – At this action-packed event, explore amazing robotics technology, demonstrations and activities from organizations throughout Massachusetts, the United States, and the World.
- Xconomy Forum: Robo Madness 2014, Menlo Park, CA (April 10) – At Xconomy's third annual robotics forum—hosted by SRI International during National Robotics Week—industry experts will grapple with the social, economic, and entrepreneurial questions arising as the robotics revolution hits home. Among the impressive lineup of speakers is Paolo Pirjanian, chief technology officer at iRobot.
- Silicon Valley Robot Block Party, Palo Alto, CA (April 9) – Hosted by Silicon Valley Robotics, see the most advanced robotics research in Silicon Valley, the hottest robot startups, the coolest robot companies and all the just plain fun robots you can imagine.
- MSI Robot Block Party, Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago, IL (April 5-13) – The robots are coming (and they're here to help)! To celebrate National Robotics Week 2014, MSI will be demonstrating several different kinds of robots from the U.S. and around the world, offering lectures from some of the top university robotics scholars and presenting special workshops and hands-on activities.
- Robotics Expo at the Smithsonian, Washington, DC (April 4-5) – The museum exhibits a number of robotics milestones, such as DARPA’s ARM robot, Robonaut 1, the MER Mars Rover model, and the Google Car, among many others. During this official National Robotics Week event, teams will demonstrate the projects they have created. Students from the Infamous Robotics Inventors Club will be demonstrating the robot they invented and designed.
Evan will be at both of those California events, and if you're there too, come say hi. Meanwhile, if you don't leave near any of these events, consider moving, and take a look at the other 220-odd events taking place across all 50 states.
Erico Guizzo is the digital product manager at IEEE Spectrum. An IEEE Member, he is an electrical engineer by training and has a master’s degree in science writing from MIT.
Evan Ackerman is a senior editor at IEEE Spectrum. Since 2007, he has written over 6,000 articles on robotics and technology. He has a degree in Martian geology and is excellent at playing bagpipes.
