Brussels, 04 December 2012 – The second European Robotics Week was held last week from November 26 to December 2, 2012.  More than 90 organisations and institutes in 21 European countries organised over 200 robotics related activities for the public and managed to reach approximately 30.000 people across Europe, many of them high school students and elementary school pupils. 

 The events featured throughout the week offered many opportunities for the public, particularly school kids and students, to have hands on interactions with robots in an educational or public setting.
Great activities such as live demonstrations of dancing robots, soccer playing robots, concerts by robot bands, robots picking beans or locating candles in a circle on a birthday cake , robots visiting schools, art exhibitions, … were organised all over Europe.  The European Robotics Week was a tremendous success in bringing awareness to the public on how robotics technology impacts our lives.

“The whole European robotics community - leading companies, robotics institutes and universities – worked successfully together to set up the European Robotics Week for a second time. Besides educating the public about the growing importance of robotics and the way it affects our everyday lives, last week was a major opportunity to attract younger generations to study technology and robotics related fields.”, stated Henrik Schunk, Chairman of EUnited Robotics European Robotics Association and Managing Partner of Schunk GmbH & Co. KG, Germany.  

Online viewing of activities

More than 100 labs across Europe participated in the European Robotics Remote Labs initiative to showcase their activities via the internet for everyone to see from anywhere in the world. Either pre-recorded videos or live-streaming cameras showed the labs’ activities. “Robotics is cool, robotics is fun, robotics is the solution to many of the problems our world is facing”, said Professor Stefano Stramigioli from University of Twente (Netherlands) and initiator of the European Robotics Remote Labs. “The European Robotics Week is a way to celebrate the success of European Robotics. The Remote Labs Initiative is one of the means to show everybody what we do.”

Participating countries in the European Robotics Week

Austria, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Malta, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Serbia, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, The Netherlands, United Kingdom

Do you have further questions?

Please contact Kira Schilling at EUnited Robotics.

Statements of some participating organisations

“The whole European robotics community - leading companies, robotics institutes and universities – worked successfully together to set up the European Robotics Week for a second time. Besides educating the public about the growing importance of robotics and the way it affects our everyday lives, last week was a major opportunity to attract younger generations to study technology and robotics related fields.”

Henrik A. Schunk, Managing Partner SCHUNK GmbH (Lauffen, Germany) and Chairman of EUnited Robotics (European Robotics Association). 

"Robotics is cool, robotics is fun, robotics is the solution to many of the problems our world is facing. The European Robotics Week is a way to celebrate the success of European Robotics. The Remote Labs Initiative is one of the means to show everybody what we do."

Stefano Stramigioli, professor at University of Twente, Netherlands and initiator of the European Robotics Remote Labs.

„The European Robotics Week is a great opportunity for the FH Frankfurt to raise public awareness in our innovative sectors – the exhibited robots PARO, PLEO, GIRAFF and KAROTZ attracted the interest of our visitors. I am glad that the European Robotics Week exists and we are looking forward to participate again in 2013.” 

Prof. Dr. Barbara Klein, Fachhochschule Frankfurt am Main     

“Looking forward to EU Robotics Week 2013.”

Ladislav Vargovcik, CEO of ZTS VVU Kosice a.s., Slovakia

"Both events, our evening of robotics demonstrations and an Open Lab Day, met with overwhelming interest, forcing us to limit attendance for one event. All in all more than 160 people seized the opportunity to gain an insight into our laboratories, interact and play with robots, and discuss with robotics researchers. Most surprising for me was the children's great interest in robotics - and their level of knowledge and insight: Their questions ranged from the reasoning behind selecting brushless motors, to how a balancing robot would perform on a rotating plate, and to hypotheses about alternative placement of robot actuators. I think that says something interesting about the role robots could - and should - play for STEM communication and education."

Dr. Markus Waibel, senior researcher, ETH Zurich, Switzerland

"The events organized in our laboratories over the past few days, enticed over a hundred young teenagers to steer their studies towards the fascinating realm of robotics and the related technologies. The high level of concentration that could be witnessed on the participants' faces while they were completely immersed in the activities - particularly during the interactive workshops - goes to show that this year's European Robotics Week in Malta was another success!" 

Dr. Marvin Bugeja, Lecturer, University of Malta 

“I am more than happy that Hungary participated in the European Robotics Week.  We broadcasted our event live and had over one hundred people visiting our lab. Many young boys and girls led wonderful discussions about our robot demonstrations.”

Prof. George L. Kovacs, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, coordinator of the European Robotics Week in Hungary

Statements from participants at various events

“Robotics is FUN!”, Cheyenne Tonna, Student at St. Theresa Girls Junior Lyceum Imriehel, Malta.

“It was really interesting to see the different possibilities of robotics and how robots can be used in daily life“, Julian Wagner, 5th Grade, HTL Steyr, Steyr, Austria.

"We belived that programming a robot was something particularly difficult, but it is not so. It is also fun, especially when you work in simulation because it is like playing a videogame.", Melchionna Alessandro and Gozzi Alessio, students of the institute "Fermo Corni" in Modena, Italy.

 “Lego robots are great toys”, Adrian Kurucz, student of industrial electronics engineering, University of Almería, Spain.

 “Robotics is an excellent way to learn about many fields of engineering like automatic control, electronics, mechatronics, mechanics, artificial intelligence, artificial vision,…”, Ramón González, researcher in robotics, University of Almería, Spain.

"Wow, I really thought a real band was playing, couldn’t imagine that these were robots!" participant at the University of Eindhoven.

“In Denmark we’re trying to see how we can have robots as a normal part of our everyday life, both in production and in social life activities.” Lars Kjellberg, Deputy of the Danish Ambassador for the Embassy of Denmark in the Czech Republic.
 
“I learnt interesting facts about different robots”, Rebecca Galea, Student at St.Theresa Girls Junior Lyceum Imriehel, Malta.

Downloads:

• 2012-12-04 European Robotics Week - press release (English)
• Pictures of key people who made statements

Pictures of events across Europe, European Robotics Week 2012