IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - September 2010 - 13

IEEE RAS SAC ICRA Report
Michel Franken

At the beginning of May, the annual flagship conference of the
Robotics and Automation Society-the ICRA-was held in
the gorgeous city of Anchorage, Alaska. It was a great event
where a lot of interesting work was presented both by senior and
junior researchers. Besides the sharing of research results, one of
the benefits of being all at the same place at the same time is the
possibility for students to get to know each other and come into
contact with leading experts in their fields of research. To this
end, the Student Activity Committee (RAS SAC [1]) organized a
number of activities complementary to the conference program.
The first program we had was FIBRS [2], continued from the
last IROS conference. The aim of FIBRS was to let Ph.D. students act as a student cochair in a session of their choice. Several
people jumped at this opportunity. Thanks to all the session chairs
who freed up a lot of time to meet with their student cochair
before, during, and after the presentations. All the students appreciated the enthusiasm that was displayed and maybe/hopefully
some fruitful relationships resulted from these meetings.
To let students also interact with each other, outside of the
technical sessions, several informal social activities were organized. Monday, we started out with a "traditional" Alaskan lunch,
a hot dog made of reindeer meat. This quickly became known
as the Rudolph special. That evening, a large group of people,
who could not stay for the weekend, went to hike Flattop
Mountain, a steep hill still covered with snow, just outside the
city. In the meantime, some other people met in a local bar for
dinner and some drinks. Recognizing that the conference organization also had a busy schedule, the next event was not until
Thursday evening, when we went with a group of about 30
roboticists on a magnificent pub crawl to celebrate the official
ending of the conference. Friday evening, after the end of the
last workshops, we had a great time bowling. After a bit of rest,
on Saturday, morning a trip to the local museum was scheduled.

Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MRA.2010.938495

Some of the 600þ students who participated in ICRA 2010
Anchorage gathered with ICRA Chair Wes Snyder for this
photo op. (Photo courtesy Tamas Haidegger.)

Unfortunately, the science display was still closed, but we got
to see some great Alaskan art and learned a lot about its history. In
the afternoon, a large group of people felt like doing some physical exercise after an entire week of sitting, so we went to do the
hike at Flattop. After we saw some magnificent scenery and got
wet, everybody made their way safely down the mountain, and
we wrapped everything up by having a nice dinner together.
All in all, we were very pleased with the large number of
people at each activity, and we hope that everybody enjoyed
themselves. If you are interested in pictures, check it out at
[3]. Everybody is welcome to share their photos and experience through the SAC wiki page [4].
The SAC is now busy organizing similar events for IROS this
October, in Taipei. Read the "Student's Corner" column for
more details, and follow our monthly newsletter. If you have any
comments/suggestions or would like to become involved for the
next conference, please don't hesitate to contact us. We will keep
you posted on the plans through all communication channels and
are looking forward to welcoming all RAS Students in Taipei.

References
[1]
[2]
[3]
[4]

http://wiki.ieee-ras.org/mab/sac
http://wiki.ieeeras.org/mab/sac#fibrs_-_find_your_mentor
http://icra2010.grasp.upenn.edu/?q¼AllPhotos
http://wiki.ieee-ras.org/mab/sac

Successfully Presenting Your Research at Conferences and Competitions
Alejandro Perez

Your research, as groundbreaking as it might be, heavily relies
upon its presentation. This guide will give you a few pointers on
what you can do to successfully present research papers and posters at conferences and competitions.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MRA.2010.938496

SEPTEMBER 2010

All negative stereotypes commonly associated with engineering
have become obsolete. Modern engineers are expected to develop
advanced social, communication, presentation, and leadership
skills. The career of an engineer is gradually reading more like that
of an athlete rather than what is expected from a scientific profession. It is not just what projects you worked on anymore, but how
IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine

http://wiki.ieee-ras.org/mab/sac http://wiki.ieeeras.org/mab/sac#fibrs_-_find_your_mentor http://icra2010.grasp.upenn.edu/?q¼AllPhotos http://wiki.ieee-ras.org/mab/sac

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - September 2010