The mainstream of educational robotics platforms orbits the various versions of versatile robotics sets and kits, while interesting outliers add new opportunities and extend the possible learning situations. Examples of such are reconfigurable robots, rolling sphere robots, humanoids, swimming, or underwater robots. Another kind within this category are flying drones. While remotely controlled drones were a very attractive target for hobby model makers for quite a long time already, they were seldom used in educational scenarios as robots that are programmed by children to perform various simple tasks. A milestone was reached with the introduction of the educational drone Tello, which can be programmed even in Scratch, or some general-purpose languages such as Node.js or Python. The programs can even have access to the robot sensors that are used by the underlying layers of the controller. In addition, they have the option to acquire images from the drone camera and perform actions based on processing the frames applying computer vision algorithms. We have been using this drone in an educational robotics competition for three years without camera, and after our students have developed several successful projects that utilized a camera, we prepared a new competition challenge that requires the use of the camera. In the article, we summarize related efforts and our experiences with educational drones, and their use in the student projects and competition.

The EPSRC UK Robotics and Autonomous Systems (UK-RAS) Network is pleased to announce the official launch of its 2023 competitions, inviting the UK's primary schoolchildren to share their creative robot designs and imaginative stories with a panel of experts, for a chance to win some unique prizes. These annual competitions, which have proved hugely popular with budding authors and illustrators nationwide, are now returning for the fourth year. The "Draw A Robot" competition challenges children in Key Stage 1 (aged 5-7 years old) to design a robot that they'd like to see in the future. Children can use whichever drawing materials they prefer -- paper, pens, pencils, paints, crayons, or even natural materials -- to create their ideal robot design, and the robot can be designed to perform any task or job. Competition participants will be able to explain their robot's functions by labelling gadgets and features on the drawing and writing a short design spec.

Inspired by the Olympics and Paralympics, this month we discuss sports and the role AI and robotics could play. There are two aspects to this. Firstly, building AI-based robots to play sports (as is being done with RoboCup). Joining the discussion this time are: Sanmay Das (George Mason University), Tom Dietterich (Oregon State University), Steve Hanson (Rutgers University), Sabine Hauert (University of Bristol), Michael Littman (Brown University) and Oskar von Stryk (Technische Universität Darmstadt). Tom Dietterich: My colleague Jonathan Hurst and his team recently had their legged robot run a 5k.

Europe is focussed on making robots that work for the benefit of society. This requires empowering future roboticists and users of all ages and backgrounds. In its 9th edition, the European Robotics Week (#ERW2019) is expected to host more than 1000 events across Europe. Over the years, and over 5,000 events, the organisers have learned a thing or two about reaching the public, and ultimately making the robots people want. For many, robots are only seen in the media or science fiction.

Award winners in robot competitions held by the were named on 14 March 2018, during this year's European Robotics Forum (ERF), held in Tampere, Finland on 13–15 March. Awards for the ERL's 2017-18 season were presented at a Gala Dinner to winning teams that took part in all ERL competitions: Service Robots (ERL-SR), Industry Robots (ERL-IR) and Emergency Robots (ERL-ER). ERL-SR is for robots that could provide assistance in homes, particularly for people with reduced mobility. ERL-ER is for robots in simulated emergency situations and ERL-IR tackles automation in industry. Dozens of teams from around Europe took part in the 2017–18 ERL competitions, which stimulate innovation by and collaboration among robotics researchers by setting tasks in simulated real-life conditions, for completion against the clock.

The 1995 Robot Competition and Exhibition was held in Montreal, Canada, in conjunction with the 1995 International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence. The competition was designed to demonstrate state-of-the-art autonomous mobile robots, highlighting such tasks as goal-directed navigation, feature detection, object recognition, identification, and physical manipulation as well as effective humanrobot communication. The competition consisted of two separate events: (1) Office Delivery and (2) Office Cleanup. The exhibition also consisted of two events: (1) demonstrations of robotics research that was not related to the contest and (2) robotics focused on aiding people who are mobility impaired. There was also a Robotics Forum for technical exchange of information between robotics researchers.

Randy Davis announced the appointment of six new program managers at ARPA. He encouraged individuals to contact these managers to see where they can help. At IJCAI-95, Randall Davis assumed the office of president of the American Association for Artificial Intelligence (AAAI). Davis is a professor of electrical engineering and computer science and associate director of the AI Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Davis succeeds Barbara Grosz, Gordon McKay professor of computer science in the Division of Applied Sciences at Harvard University.

The Second Annual Robotics Competition and Exhibition was held in July 1993 in conjunction with the National Conference on Artificial Intelligence. This article reports some of my experiences in helping to design and run the contest and some reflections, drawn from post mortem abstracts written by the competitors, on the relation of the contest to current research efforts in mobile robotics. The competition, which attracted teams from many of the top mobile robotics research laboratories in the United States (see side bar), was first proposed by Thomas Dean and held at the 1992 NCAI conference. Dean's concept was to further the research into the skills such robots need--sensing, interpretation, planning, and reacting--by bringing together interested parties in a cooperative and challenging environment. Ideas should be tested in the real world, not just the controlled conditions of the laboratory.

This article is the content of an invited talk given by the authors at the Thirteenth National Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI-96). The piece begins with a short history of the competition, then discusses the technical challenges and the political and cultural issues associated with bringing it off every year. We also cover the science and engineering involved with the robot tasks and the educational and commercial aspects of the competition. We finish with a discussion of the community formed by the organizers, participants, and the conference attendees. The original talk made liberal use of video clips and slide photographs; so, we have expanded the text and added photographs to make up for the lack of such media.

U.S. officials have reportedly decided to allow a group of Afghan girls, who has previously been denied entry, into the U.S. to attend a robot competition. The decision followed backlash when it was reported the six teens would not be allowed to participate in the competition. Politico reported the decision came at the urging of President Donald Trump. The group, which consists of six Afghan teenage girls, applied – and was denied – twice for visas by the U.S. At the time, the State Department declined to comment on why the visa were denied, saying "all visa applications are adjudicated on a case-by-case basis in accordance with U.S. law." Afghanistan is not part of the Trump administration's executive order temporarily banning travel from six Muslim-majority countries.