Erion Plaku
$50,000
Geoffrey A Hollinger
Oregon State University
Oregon
Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE)
This award will support the organization of the annual Principal Investigators (PI) meeting for the National Robotics Initiative (NRI) and Foundational Research in Robotics (FRR), which were launched in 2011 and 2020 respectively. The PI meeting will bring together the community of active robotics researchers to provide cross-project coordination of intellectual challenges and best practices in education, technology transfer and general outreach. This activity will also establish a repository illustrating the research ideas explored and milestones achieved by the various robotics projects. The meeting is planned for three days in March of 2021, to be held virtually. The format will include presentations by the attending PIs of projects in their final year, a poster session with all other projects, keynote speeches, and panel discussions. This award is to organize the spring 2021 NRI and FRR PI meeting. The meeting promotes dissemination and serendipitous collaboration amongst robotics researchers. The organization includes participation for graduate students as well as PIs. This award is for the meeting organization only. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.