OSRF is pleased to welcome Dirk Thomas! Dirk has more than 6 years of professional software development experience. He received his PhD in Computer Science from the Technische Universität Darmstadt in 2010, which was concentrated on Robotics Middleware.

Dirk has been a successful RoboCuper since 2003 as part of the Darmstadt Dribbling Dackels in the Sony Aibo league as well as the Humanoid Kidsize team Darmstadt Dribblers. Before joining OSRF, Dirk worked at Willow Garage leading the development of the new build system in ROS during the Groovy release, developing the framework for Qt-based graphical ROS tools rqt and maintaining the core ROS packages. Dirk is excited to join OSRF and will be working on the next generation of ROS as well as improving the supporting infrastructure.

OSRF folks know that students love Open Source software, Robotics and flip flops. Do you want to spend your summer doing real-world software development, contributing to robotics projects like Gazebo, ROS, and CloudSim, and engaging with the global robotics community, all while getting paid? Then check out our GSoC 2013 site. You’ll also want to read through our ideas page, which lists projects that we’re interested in. Feel free to ask questions and propose suggestions at gsoc2013@localhost. The student application period starts April 22nd. Get ready for a robotics coding summer!.

OSRF is pleased to welcome Tully Foote! Tully has been a core ROS developer for many years, and he is looking forward to continuing that work. Tully attended Caltech and UPenn earning his BS and MS while working on all three of the the DARPA Grand Challenges. He most recently has been working on ROS at Willow Garage as well as many other projects including designing the TurtleBot.

OSRF is pleased to welcome Paul Mathieu! Paul is a software engineering intern with the ROS Team and works on bringing binary support for ROS on ARM platforms. He recently obtained a MSc. in Robotics at the University of Tokyo where he was working on indoor navigation of a quadrotor UAV with an on-board depth camera, and a MSc. in Aerospace Engineering from Supaero (France). Recently arrived from France, he enjoys California’s lifestyle and clement weather.

OSRF is pleased to welcome William Woodall! William is a Software Engineer and a robotics enthusiast. He joined the Open Source Robotics Foundation as a member of the ROS development team in February of 2013. Before that he worked at Willow Garage on general ROS development and supporting internal Willow Garage projects. Before that, he built an awesome autonomous lawnmower. He will apply his software engineering and design skills to improve the state of open source robotics at OSRF.

We’re pleased to announce that the ROS project will soon be hosted by Oregon State University’s Open Source Lab (OSL). The OSL provides services to many open source communities. We are pleased to join the ranks of projects like Drupal and kernel.org. We’d like to thank Willow Garage for providing hosting and infrastructure for the entire ROS community for over 5 years.

We’d also like to thank Lance Albertson, Carlos Jensen, and Bill Smart for welcoming us to the OSL. We look forward to working with Oregon State and the OSL to provide ongoing hosting as well as exploring ways to improve ROS infrastructure for the greater community.

In the coming weeks, we’ll migrate the wiki, ROS Answers, and the Ubuntu package repository from Willow Garage to the OSL. We’ll announce more detailed plans as they come together and we’ll do our best to minimize disruptions during the migration.

As you might imagine, hosting for these critical services, which are heavily used around the world and around the clock, costs money. We need your help! A big thank you to the ROS-Industrial Consortium, which has stepped up to support part of this cost. If your organization can financially support ROS project hosting, please contact us at info@localhost.

Tully and Melonee were recently interviewed about their creation, the TurtleBot. Congratulations to both for the impact they’ve had on the entire community!

OSRF is pleased to welcome Isaac Saito! Isaac Saito is a software engineering intern with the ROS Team, working in particular on the RQT GUI framework. Before coming to the US from Japan to get his M.sc in Systems Engineering at Southern Methodist University (Dallas, TX), he worked on a web search system for Keio University (30K+ affiliates organization) working closely with IBM Tokyo Research utilizing information retrieval, and also built pedestrian navigation prototypes for mega-sized train stations with East Japan Railway.

ROS experts Dirk, William, and Tully recently joined OSRF and are settling in to the ROS Cave to continue their work on the software. To celebrate, we took a field trip to K1 Speed for a friendly but competitive go karting grand prix. Highlights from our outing included: a minor crash, one driver’s inspiring journey from last to third place, two emotional awards ceremonies, and the realization that Kazuto, our intern from JSK, looks great in a yellow headsock. While some egos were bruised, it was great to get out of the building and unwind in tiny cars.

Registration for ROSCon 2013 is now open. Early registration ends March 31st. We’re looking forward to seeing many of you in Germany in May!