RoboCup Federation
Call for Project Proposals
The RoboCup Federation is pleased to issue this call for proposals to fund small efforts to benefit our RoboCup Community. We describe below the type of activities we are targeting in 2011, the eligibility criteria, the application procedure, the criteria for evaluation, and the award process. The funding will be in the range $1K to $5K and the proposed activities must be completed by the end of 2011. Given the novelty of this awarding process, we look forward to the understanding and patience of the community, while we converge through experience to fill in all the details of this process.
1. TYPE OF ACTIVITIES TO BE SUPPORTED
We aim at supporting three types of activities, namely:
(i) to benefit the infrastructure of our RoboCup events
(ii) to contribute to strongly RoboCup-focused research efforts
(iii) to promote the education on specific RoboCup topics
a) INFRASTRUCTURE: requests for development of infrastructure to support enhancements of the RoboCup leagues and of the RoboCup community. Infrastructure efforts should target software development, but not hardware or specific materials. Requests to buy hardware for the competition infrastructure are not accepted within this call and would be handled outside the scope of this call.
Examples of proposals under this category are (but not limited to) implementation of:
- Infrastructure for sharing open source code and other design best practices
- Game controllers
- Simulator extensions
- Middleware to support mixed teams
- Automated referees
- Automated game commentators, e.g., for facebook and/or tweeter
- Defining and mining a RoboCup social network
- Creating a database of job positions
b) EXCHANGE: requests for exchange of team members to promote interchange and integration of research from different sources.
Examples of proposals under this category are (but not limited to):
- student exchange among RoboCup Teams (not applicable to Junior students)
- faculty exchange among RoboCup Teams
- RoboCup camp/workshop attendance
- Conference attendance for presentation of RoboCup papers
c) EDUCATION: requests for support of RoboCup events, excluding competitions
Examples of proposals under this category are (but not limited to):
- RoboCup camps
- RoboCup workshops (standalone or in connection with other conferences or events)
- resources for the academic community and/or general public to help them understand the purpose and the technical achievements of RoboCup
2. APPLICATION PROCEDURE
The applicants must be Team Leaders (from 2009-2010), Members of League Technical Committees, Execs, or Trustees. For Junior leagues, only Members of League Technical Committees, Execs or Trustees can submit applications for activities of type 1-a) and 1-c) only. Multiple applications for the same goal are possible (although not encouraged). In this case, each application must be submitted separately, but it should clearly indicate the relationship with other applications. Each application must include a curriculum vitae of the applicant (including a publication list) and a description of the proposed activity (suggested length 2 pages) clearly stating the objectives, the technical content and the impact on the RoboCup Community.
Applications can be submitted by January 14th 2011 and require 2 steps:
1) fill in the questionannaire at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/DFCFQ2V
2) send the files by by email to: april.robocup@gmail.com
3. EVALUATION OF THE PROPOSALS
The proposal will be evaluated by a specific committee of the Trustees of the RoboCup Federation according to the following criteria:
- quality of the proposal (technical content and presentation)
- benefit for the RoboCup Community
- scientific merit of the applicant
- adequacy of resources and budget
In case of need, the committee may ask for proposal evaluators from within or external to our community. The outcome of the evaluation will be communicated via email at the address specified in the application by January 31st 2011.
4. AWARD OF THE SUPPORT:
Given the diversity of our community, with different financial constraints for each country and institution, we envision providing the financial support in one of three forms:
a) check reimbursement
b) voucher for registration fees at RoboCup
c) cash reimbursement at the RoboCup event
The timing for awarding of the support will be set as a function of the needs of the activity. In general, it will be based on the completion of the activity, the presentation of a summary report, and original receipts, as applicable.