From 16 to 18 May, the IFÉ participated in Innorobo, a European summit dedicated to robotic technologies and breakthrough innovations in response to major societal issues. This exhibition brings together a vast ecosystem of key players: large groups and start-ups, research and training centres, public institutions, technology or service providers, investors and the media.
Catherine Pérotin, deputy director of the IFÉ, spoke on May 16, an afternoon in the framework of the general use of Robotics (EGR). She participated in a round-table discussion on "Initial and continuing training in response to the needs of industrialists and service companies".
On May 18, an IFÉ team participated in the International Forum on Educational Robotics. The Ocinaée projects (led by the IFÉ) and high school projects, Robot, in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes (realization of the monitoring and analysis of the uses by the IFÉ on behalf of the ARA region) were presented, as well as the results of work carried out in collaboration with the Université Lyon 2 (ISPEF-ECP) on current educational uses of telepresence robots in the world. A work seminar will then identify the new leads for the projects and research trials that could be conducted within the framework of transnational partnerships.
The IFÉ participated from 2014 to the end of 2016 in the experimentation " Robot High school projects in Auvergne Rhône-Alpes" and has just put the study report online highlighting tangible benefits for student users, as well as some limits concerning the current uses of mobile telepresence in schools. It formulates a series of recommendations for the implementation of telepresence robots in schools, as well as for the development of educational and socio-educational uses of these innovative tools.
This project, led by the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Regional Council, consisted in putting mobile telepresence robots at the disposal of high schools and medico-educational units. It was a way of allowing students, studying out of school due to illness or a handicap to be able, through these robots, to continue to follow their classes and school curricula. Over the three years of the project, the IFÉ has followed and analyzed the conditions of implementation and the uses of these high school robots and their development.
In addition, on September 25 and 26, 2017, the IFÉ will organise a meeting of European experts from the CIDREE, focusing on the links between robotics and education. The aim of this seminar is to map the uses of educational robotics in the European countries represented, to identify the experiments and projects in progress, to discuss the issues covered by these new uses and equipment. This is to support the emergence of a community of professionals, researchers, project-leaders and industrialists around educational robotics.