RSJ 2019 @ Waseda

RSJ comes to Tokyo

The 37th Annual Conference of the Robotics Society of Japan (RSJ2019) was held at Waseda University, in Tokyo. A total of 5 students of our lab presented their work there.

This time, I also had the opportunity to take part as a Program Committee Member. It was really interesting to partake in this process and see how these events are organized and handled.

This year, they gave us something very interesting: Astroboy Currency. If you’re wondering what this is, I was equally confused. Well, they actually created a currency based on Osamu Tezuka’s anime Astroboy, and you can actually use it in select stores surronding the University. 1 bariki (horsepower) is equal to 1 Japanese yen. Here’s how my 500 bariki bill looks like.

This was also a great opportunity to catch up with friends living in the Kanto area, as well as professors from other universities in Japan. The keynotes were very interesting as well. Did you know they’re planning to build a 1:1 scale Gundam robot that actually moves? It’s impressive, really.