Section: Highlights of the Year

Highlights of the Year

Scientific Awards

Jonathan Grizou obtained the "Prix Le Monde de la recherche universitaire" for his thesis ( [91] ) and work on "Learning from unlabeled interaction" [30] [92] . This work allowed in particular to develop new algorithms for Brain-Computer Interfaces that remove the need for a phase of calibration and allow users to achieve sequential tasks. This work was achieved in collaboration with I. Iturrate and L. Montesano (Univ. Zaragoza, Spain), and the PhD was co-supervised by M. Lopes and PY. Oudeyer.

Matthieu Lapeyre obtained the "Second prix de thèse du GDR Robotique" for his thesis on the development of the open-source 3D printed Poppy Humanoid platform [102] , now in use in various scientific, educational and artistic projects worldwide http://www.poppy-project.org . This work was achieved in collaboration with P. Rouanet and the PhD was supervised by PY Oudeyer.

Dissemination and transfer

In the context of the Poppy project, a contract was signed between Inria and the company Generation Robots agreeing on the worldwide reselling and distribution of the Poppy robotic kits, and in particular the Poppy Humanoid and Poppy Torso kits: http://www.generationrobots.com/ .

The Flowers team made major achievements in diffusing science and technology towards the general public. The team developped the IniRobot pedagogical kit, for the discovery of computer science and robotics in primary schools. The kit was first developped and evaluated in schools, in collaboration with a group of teachers, and then in 2015 saw a large national dissemination, as it has been used by 8000 school children in 35 towns. A dedicated web site has been created, allowing all users and contributors to share their experiences with the kit: https://dm1r.inria.fr/c/kits-pedagogiques/inirobot . Also, in 2015 the team began a large scale transfer project called Poppy Education (Féder/Region Aquitaine/Inria co-finding) targeting to develop, evaluate and disseminate robotic pedagogical kits for teaching ICT in high-schools and university level courses.