Travel Support for Mobile Micro-Robotics Challenge at IEEE ICRA 2013

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This project proposes to provide competitive travel support for student teams wishing to compete in the Mobile Micro-Robotics Challenge. The challenge involves advances in the design and fabrication of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) enabling the development of mobile micro-robots that can autonomously navigate and manipulate in controlled environments. It is expected that this technology will be critical in applications as varied as intelligent sensor networks, in vivo medical diagnosis and treatment, and adaptive microelectronics. However, many challenges remain, particularly with respect to locomotion, power storage, embedded intelligence, and motion measurement, therefore, it is valuable to help enable participation by defraying travel costs. The broader impacts of this grant include the ability of research teams to showcase working demonstrations that support the challenge themes of micro-scale actuation, manipulation and locomotion. Travel assistance will increase the exposure of US student teams to international competitors, likely increasing the knowledge and competitiveness of the US-based teams since this event has traditionally been dominated by teams from Europe. The multi-day competitions will be held during the IEEE ICRA conference providing an excellent opportunity to engage a broad technical audience. The competitions are open to the general public to raise awareness of the state-of-the-art. The competitions provide an opportunity for students and leaders to learn how micro-robotics can play an important role in society.