August 22, 2022

Carnegie Mellon’s Robotics Institute hosts undergraduate student researchers from around the world annually through the Robotics Institute Summer Scholars (RISS) program.  With its committed community of mentors and partners, the Robotics Institute helps launch these scholars into robotics graduate programs and industry with nearly 25 RISS alums receiving offers of admissions to the CMU SCS graduate programs. 

This summer, the scholars joined with the RISS community of alumni and friends of the program to design and create RoboLaunch, an outreach and broadening participation initiative.

RoboLaunch offered a series of talks and conversations from diverse pioneers & RISS alumni exploring how robotics research/education can be fun.

Thirteen sessions were held.  Sessions included Intro to Robotics and the AI Driving Olympics, Robotics for Stress Reduction in Children, and Snakes in Space. 

The result:  RoboLaunch engaged over 13,000 individuals across the US and around the world.