Statement from the Connecticut Council on Developmental Disabilities

Hello Everyone;

Welcome to the web page for the Hide and Seek Robotics Competition, sponsored by the CT Council on Developmental Disabilities and held in conjunction with the Trinity College Engineering Department. The most recent robotics competition weekend was at Trinity College on April 14 and 15, 2007.

There has been a Fire Fighting competition for the past 15 years. 2007 was the first year for the Hide and Seek competition. The Hide and Seek competition took place for only an hour because time had to be divided between the Hide and Seek and Fire Fighting competitions. For the next robotics weekend, however, the Hide and Seek event will be held concurrently with the Fire Fighting robotics contest, allowing for a much longer period of competition time. There will also be some changes in the rules, which will allow more teams to be eligible to compete in the event. The Hide and Seek competition will therefore be longer, more competitive, and therefore better!

The Hide and Seek event presents a scenario where a child with autism or an intellectual disability is in a fire, panics, and then runs and hides in the burning house instead of trying to exit. The robot’s job is to find the child and indicate where he or she is hiding.

The Hide and Seek event looks forward to its second year at the Robotics Competition on April 12 and 13, 2008 at Trinity College.

The CT Council on Developmental Disabilities is also sponsoring a presentation for parents at this event. It will address what has been done with robots for children on the autism spectrum. The main speaker will Dr. Francois Michaud, from the University of Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada. The symposium will start at 1:15 p.m. on Saturday, April 12, 2008 in McCook Auditorium on the Trinity campus. Dr. Michaud's website is: http://www.gel.usherbrooke.ca/michaudf/

For more information on the work that Dr. Michaud has done with robots for children on the autism spectrum, please go to the following website: http://www.gel.usherbrooke.ca/laborius/projects/Robotism/index.html.

The Council may have a demonstration of, ConnectR, a new interactive robot. The technology of the future robotics will assist the independence and productivity for people with disabilities.

Sincerely,

Cathy Adamczyk, Chair                                                 Joyce Baker
CT Council on Developmental Disabilities                      Member of the Robotics Planning Committee