Brussels, 26 November 2012 – Today is the start of the second European Robotics Week: From 26th of November to 2nd of December over 91 organisations in 21 European countries organise 199 robotics related activities across Europe, serving to educate the public about how robots impact society and to inspire students of all ages to study technology, science and engineering. This week will also highlight the growing importance of European robotics in a wide variety of application areas and celebrate the strong and competitive position of robotics in Europe.

Exciting events all over Europe

During this whole week there will be robot demonstrations, workshops about robotics, open labs for students and the public, hands-on activities for kids, robots visiting schools, art exhibitions, media events, just to name a few.
In Prague, Czech Republic, the Italian Human-Robot Band Cobol Pongide, will play a 30 minutes concert for kids and teenagers (27 Nov, offered by organiser “Vive Les Robots”). In Lauffen, Germany students without any prior knowledge will learn to program a toy robot in two days. The topic will be “Birthday“, so robots have to locate candles in a circle, collect gifts, and move flaps (26-28 Nov, offered by “Schunk”). At the Science Gallery in Dublin a night of Robotics demonstrations, talks and network building will take place where real robots and robots in development are shown (28 Nov, offered by “Robotics Ireland”) and in Chania, Greece, students of all ages are invited to watch a live show demonstration of robot dance and robot soccer with Nao and Aibo robots (30 Nov, offered by “Robotic Team Kouretes”), plus many more activities all over Europe. 

Online viewing of activities

See what’s going on in the robotics labs across Europe during the European Robotics Week via Internet from anywhere in the world! 
More than 97 European Robotics Labs open their doors to the public via live-streaming. Either pre-recorded videos or live-streaming cameras show the labs’ activities. All participating European Robotics Labs are grouped and displayed at http://www.robotics-labs.eu. 

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 European Robotics Week is an opportunity for the public to get a hands-on experience with robots. This week will highlight the growing importance of European robotics in a wide variety of application areas and is a possibility to celebrate the strong and competitive position of robotics in Europe.”

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

"After the successful first edition last year, the professional robotics community in Europe (industrial as well as academic) will reach out once more to the general public in Europe, to show the breadth and depth of its innovations and world-leading research. In addition, we want to show to our European press that there is no need at all to go outside of Europe in order to find amazing and cool robot systems and applications to write about."

Herman Bruyninckx, professor at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Leuven, Belgium) and coordinator of EURON (European Robotics Research Network). 

“Robotics is going to deeply change humanity’s idea of itself; to change the method of conducting scientific inquiry and the way in which we think, develop and use technology. Robotics will fundamentally improve our quality of life, and our planets’ well-being. The European Robotics Week is a great opportunity for Scuola di Robotica to participate in the second, European-wide, high level and grass-roots network of robotics events picturing the manifold of issues and potentials of this science field.”

Fiorella Operto, professor at Scuola di Robotica (Genova, Italy) and coordinator of the European Robotics Week in Italy. 

“SINTEF and NTNU are participating in the European Robotics Week as a means of promoting the importance of robotics research for Norwegian industry and society. Norway is a high cost country and innovative robotic solutions is important in small series production and production in remote areas such as offshore and subsea.”

Dr. Ingrid Schjølberg, Research Manager, SINTEF ICT (Trondheim, Norway)

"Robotics is cool, robotics is fun, robotics is the solution to many of the problems our world is facing. Europe is strong in robotics and will become even stronger thanks to the great vision the EU and all European labs have. The European style of doing research in good collaborations among people and a real team spirit is the great asset that Europe has and this is paying off. The European Robotics Week is a way to celebrate this success and to show everybody what we do and the Remote Labs Initiative is just one of the means to do that."

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

“The European Robotics Week is an excellent opportunity! We organise meetings of young researchers from industry and academia and we also present to the public both research results in robotics and the ways in which robotics can make their professional and private lives easier and more pleasant. We expect that the European Robotics Week attracts attention on wide scale and encourages young people to study technical subjects.” 

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

"The European Robotics Week is a great opportunity to get an overview of - and deep insight into - the many facets of robotics. I am looking forward to sharing the new exciting developments in the area of Cloud Robotics with a broad general public, and in particular to introducing the RoboEarth Cloud Engine."

Markus Waibel, senior researcher, ETH Zurich, Switzerland 

"The very positive feedback from last year's participants strengthened our opinion that the European Robotics Week is extremely effective to attract the younger generations to robotics and the related fields, as well as to inform the general public on the beneficial impact of such technologies on everyday life. For these reasons, this year we have increased the number of interactive workshops with mobile robots for school children. In addition, we will once again be opening the doors of our laboratories to the participants, who will have the opportunity to meet the academics, researchers and their robots, ranging from industrial manipulators to intelligent mobile platforms used for research." 

Dr. Marvin Bugeja, Lecturer, University of Malta and Event Organiser