Unlocking for Industrial Users the Power of ROS 2: ROS-I October Training Highlights

The ROS-Industrial Consortium Americas provided a hybrid, online/in-person, ROS 2 training October 22-24. The three-day ROS-I developers training class was given to trainees from across the ROS-Industrial Consortium membership.

Whether you are just starting to use, are already experienced in ROS 2, the training offered something for all levels. Newcomers learned the ropes, getting a solid foundation in the framework’s core concepts, while experienced developers delved into advanced topics such as advanced motion planning, including tuning optimizatoin contsraint parameters.

Currently training is on ROS 2 Humble, delivered through an AWS EC2 instance. On the first day, the attendees were divided into two groups: beginner ROS developers and advanced ROS developers. The advanced group learned how to set up a basic motion planning pipeline in Tesseract, where they refined a planning pipeline increasing robustness. By the end of the day students were adding unique customizations to the pipeline.

The beginner group focused on learning the fundamentals of ROS 2, including workspace structure and best practices for adding scripts and building the workspace. They also learned about creating packages / nodes, topics (publishers / subscribers), messages, services, actions, launch files and command line parameters.

Day 2, groups gathered to learn how to develop URDF/XACROs to describe a robot, as well as how to use TFs and create a MoveIt Package for an industrial robot for motion planning in a simulation environment.

Day 3 started with a tour that focused on ROS 2 robotic systems within the Robotics Department at SwRI, where the instructors were able to give insights on the capabilities of ROS 2 in more tangible working industrial examples.

In person attendees stepping through the scan-n-plan workshop demonstration

Wrapping up the training participants were given the opportunity to share with instructors and the group how they intended to use ROS in their projects and where already under way the instructors were able to provide additional assistance to address issues in their application development back home.

Hybrid training always presents challenges, in making sure those online get the same attention as those in the room. However, it was rewarding to assist attendees in getting deeper into ROS 2, whether they were just starting out or wanting to expand their solution set or add features to an ongoing project. As always, as instructors, we always look forward to seeing how they apply these new skills and always look forward to interactin through the repositories or various ROS/ROS-I collaborative events.

If you are interested in an upcoming training class, they are regularly posted at https://rosindustrial.org/events-summary.

ROS Bootcamp 2020 - a learning initiative in collaboration with Singapore Polytechnic

This year’s edition of the ROS Bootcamp was held from the 16th to 20th March, in collaboration with Singapore Polytechnic. The bootcamp stretched over a 5-day intensive hands-on experience on topics such as perception and autonomous navigation with the turtlebot3.

Timelapse of the students coming to class!

Timelapse of the students coming to class!

The students were first introduced to the basics of linux commands and writing a ROS subscriber and publisher. Students were then tasked to write up their own scripts to incorporate the use of open-sourced ROS packages such as AR Tracking & the ROS Navigation Stack. They had also learnt the importance of testing their work in simulation, using powerful tools on ROS such as RViz & Gazebo, before trying the actual hardware.

On the last day of the bootcamp, a mini navigation competition took place to see who’s turtlebot would be able to navigate through a maze autonomously using what they have learnt.

A successful run of the student’s work!

A successful run of the student’s work!

 The ROS-Industrial team is happy to see a handful of very enthusiastic and strong-willed future engineers growing interest more in the development of robotic applications! We look forward to next year’s edition!

New edition of the ROS MOOC from TUDelft for ROS beginners

New edition of the ROS MOOC from TUDelft for ROS beginners

We are pleased to announce a new edition of the ROS MOOC, Hello (Real) World with ROS. The course will open on 15 January 2020 at 13:00 CET on the edX online learning platform.

You can enrol now at the Course Webpage for a fun ROS learning journey!

This course is a part of the educational activities of the EU project ROSIN and is offered by the TU Delft Cognitive Robotics department with the support of the Online Learning School.

The target audience for the course are beginner level ROS1 users. The course will be instructor paced and of 6 weeks duration. A study/work load of about 8-12 hours per week is expected.

See you online from January 15th!

The Delft ROS MOOC team

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