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MEDIA ADVISORY - April 4, 2014: USC Viterbi Hosts Annual Robotics Open House

Press Release
CONTACT: Robert Perkins - 213-740-9226 or perkinsr@usc.edu; Megan Hazle - 213-821-1887 or hazle@usc.edu
April 04, 2014 —

 

The public is invited to interact with flying, underwater, social, assistive, humanoid, and reconfigurable robots!

RSVP to: Robert Perkins at (213) 740-9226 or perkinsr@usc.edu; or Megan Hazle at (213) 821-1887 or hazle@usc.edu

WHAT: On Thursday, USC Viterbi School of Engineering will open its doors and welcome the public to see and interact with its collection of robots.

Organized by the USC Robotics and Autonomous Systems Center (RASC), the event will feature a host of different machines, including social and humanoid robots, underwater robots, flying robots, robotic arms, and reconfigurable “super robots,” both small and large.

The open house also celebrates National Robotics Week, a nationwide initiative aimed at increasing public awareness of the growing importance of "robo-technology" and its future social and cultural impact.

More details about the open house can be found online here: rasc.usc.edu/roboticsopenhouse

 WHEN:  Thursday, April 10, from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.
 WHERE:  Check-in at the Ronald Tutor Hall (RTH) courtyard for a map of robotics demos
 PARKING:  Print reporters are asked to park in Parking Structure 2. Enter PS2 on the east side of FIgueroa Street to find the lot behind the Radisson hotel; walk across Figueroa and then to the opposite side of campus to the check-in.

News vans may park directly in front of Tutor Hall on McClintock Avenue, though space is limited so RSVPs are requested. Enter at Gate 6 from Vermont Avenue.

An interactive map is available at http://web-app.usc.edu/maps/#upc/.

USC is the largest center of robotics research in Southern California and boasts the most state-of-the-art equipment for human-centered robotics in the nation. USC professors and students alike are internationally renowned for their robotics work focusing on societally relevant problems, including those in health and the environment.

Last year, Maja Matarić—founding director of USC RASC and co-director of the USC Robotics Research Lab—won the Anita Borg Institute’s 2013 Women of Vision Award for Innovation for her research and development of robots to help people with special needs.

About the USC Robotics and Autonomous Systems Center (RASC)
Robotics and Autonomous Systems Center (RASC) was established in fall 2002. It is an interdisciplinary organized research unit (ORU) in the USC Viterbi School of Engineering that focuses on the science and technology of effective, robust, and scalable robotic systems, with broad and far-reaching applications. RASC facilitates interdisciplinary interactions and collaboration through its robotics faculty and its large team of interdisciplinary affiliates and serves as a linch pin for strategic research areas at USC. http://rasc.usc.edu

About the USC Viterbi School of Engineering
Engineering Studies began at the University of Southern California in 1905. Nearly a century later, the Viterbi School of Engineering received a naming gift in 2004 from alumnus Andrew J. Viterbi, inventor of the Viterbi algorithm now key to cell phone technology and numerous data applications. Consistently ranked among the top graduate programs in the world, the school enrolls more than 5,000 undergraduate and graduate students, taught by 174 tenured and tenure-track faculty, with 60 endowed chairs and professorships. http://viterbi.usc.edu

Contact
Megan Hazle - 213-821-1887 or hazle@usc.edu
Robert Perkins - 213-740-9226 or perkinsr@usc.edu

Assets
Photos from the USC Viterbi Robotics Open House on April 10, 2014, will be available to press. Please contact Megan Hazle or Robert Perkins.