Instead of the annually held University of Zagreb Fair and Doors Open Day at UNIZG FER, this year the event had a special edition. The alternative  Windows Open Days  featured a programme that was streamed via MS Teams. UNIZG-FER's “windows” were open from  November 19 to 21, 2020 . LARICS also participated in the programme within the session  Introducing projects - Ask professors what you want to know about robotics . LARICS members presented the lab, their activities, robots, and projects. The extensive programme is available as YouTube videos at  https://smotra.fer.unizg.hr/

Due to circumstances caused by the pandemic situation, AeRoTwin project partners had submitted amendment request to extend the project by 6 months. The amendment has been granted and the new end date of the project is 28 February 2022 . The pandemic has affected the majority of project activites, especially those where alternative to real life implementation was not possible, e.g. activities within work packages know-how exchange and networking and visibility (e.g. short-term visists, hands-on on-site trainings, participation at industry fairs, etc.)  

LARICS team attended  Breaking the Surface 2020  workshop from September 27 to October 4, 2020. This was the 12th edition of this international intersiciplinary field workshop of marine robotics and its applications, held every year in Biograd na moru, Croatia.  LARICS members actively participated in the workshop programme with their PhD presentations and tutorials, and attended lectures by  AeRoTwin partners  from  the University of Seville  (J. Ramiro Martinez de Dios, Augusto Gómez Eguíluz, Julio L. Paneque) and  Imperial College London  (Mirko Kovac, Crystal Winston, Andre Farinha, Julien di Tria), and the  invited talk by Ivana Palunko  (University of Dubrovnik) organized within H2020 AeRoTwin project. Photos are available in the Gallery .

Our PhD students Antun Ivanovic, Lovro Markovic, Marko Krizmancic and Ana Batinovic attended the 2020 IEEE RAS Summer School on Multi-Robot Systems hosted at Czech Technical University in Prague from 14th to 18th of September 2020 . The Summer School program aims at promoting the newest achievements in multi-robot system research.  The main scope of the program was swarm robotics, including lectures by well-recognized experts in the field, group seminars, computer practicals, and outdoor experiments.  Moreover, the Summer School was a great opportunity for networking with other participants and lecturers.  You can find more about the Summer School at http://mrs.felk.cvut.cz/summer-school/ Check out photos in the Gallery.

Living Machines Satellite 2020 Workshop is a virtual workshop entitled "Growing structures: bioinspired innovation insights for architecture and robotics". This event, co-organised by Dr. Mirko Kovac (ICL),  is to be held on 28 July 2020 . Dr. Kovac is also going to give a talk on "Tensile web construction and perching with aerial vehicles". Full program is available here .

International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) 2020 is the largest robotics conference of its’ kind. A  virtual workshop entitled "Self-Assembling and Reconfigurable Systems" is to be held on Tuesday, 30 June 2020 . The event is co-organised by Dr. Mirko Kovac (ICL), who is also going to give an invited talk.  Full program is available here: https://www.selfassemblingsystems.org/program To view the full line-up of speakers, please check: https://www.selfassemblingsystems.org/invited-speakers

LARICS team was busy before the pandemic shut everything down for a few months.  Following his talk at E-Conference  Better Future of Healthy Ageing 2020 (BFHA 2020) , Professor Kovacic gave an  interview for ZIMO portal  on the preliminary work with Pepper robots being demonstrators of rehabilitation exercises and plans for the future of humanoid robots in healthcare. Full article (in Croatian) is available  here .

In celebration of the World Bee Day (May 20), Prof. Stjepan Bogdan held an invited talk “Swarm Intelligence in Animal-Robot Interaction” at the Technical Museum Nikola Tesla  in Zagreb. Prof. Bogdan presented very interesting results of research done on bee communication channels and social behaviour of bees. The talk was a part of a special programme the Museum had prepared to raise awareness of the importance of pollinators, the threats they face and their contribution to sustainable development.