Happy Holidays to all FIRA Friends,

 

I hope that you and your family are doing well and that you can share joyous moments with them during this holiday season. Take a break from working with your robots.

 

It is traditional at the end of year to look back at the events of the current year and to reflect on our progress.  2017 was a very important year for FIRA. We have completely re-booted the event (as my colleague Prof. Paul Oh) said and introduced many new events (FIRA Sports, FIRA Challenge, FIRA Air). These will allow us to address current state of the art research issues in a way that is both entertaining and insightful for the general public.

 

With FIRA Youth, we also included elementary, junior, and senior high school student in our events. It was great to see so many happy faces and the older students were happy to demonstrate their robots, research, and resourcefulness to the younger generation.

 

FIRA 2017 in Kaohsiung was a great success due to Prof. Kuo-Yang Tu's and his team's diligence and hard work. A great Thanks also to all the chair, co-chairs, chapter heads, members of the technical committees, and FIRA participants that worked hard on preparing the rules and playing fields for the event. One of my happiest memories of FIRA 2017 was the banquet, where many countries showed that they can not only work on their robots, but also are born entertainers. 

We will definitely re-organize the FIRA Band in 2018.

 

In conclusion, I wish you "All the Best" for the holidays and the coming new year.  May the new year bring you lots of joy. 

 

We now start working on preparing for FIRA 2018.

 

Season's Greeting,

 

Jacky Baltes

President FIRA