The inauguration of the Robotics & AI Lab coincided, of course, with the announcement of the new IE Robotics Club, founded by a group of third-year students of the Bachelor in Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence at IE University. We sat down with some of them to learn more about the club.
Innovating with the IE Robotics Club
Three students were involved in the creation of both the IE Robotics Club and IE University’s Robotics & AI Lab, having discussed it with Rafif Srour, Vice Dean of IE School of Science and Technology. The idea behind the IE Robotics Club was to offer a hub where students could apply their theoretical knowledge to real robotics projects.
Now with 11 members, the club is expanding and looking for other like-minded students that have an interest in programming, robotics and artificial intelligence. Even students without robotics experience are welcome, as long as they are eager to learn and develop their own projects.
Meet the Students Behind the Club
Pablo Ortega, co-founder and president
According to Pablo, the club represents a fantastic opportunity for students to develop their own personal projects, separate from what they may be doing as part of their programs. The club projects act as reinforcement learning, adding to the students’ knowledge base and helping them keep up with the latest technological advances.
His advice to students interested in joining the club is to “not be afraid if you aren’t experienced in robotics and AI. We aren’t experienced in robotics either” and learning about it is part of the journey. “The more people in the club, the better!”
Diego Sanmartin, co-founder
For Diego, the club’s main goal is to get as many people involved in robotics as possible. According to him, they want to help students “get into more advanced AI by starting with simple projects, so that they can understand it and then move on to more complex projects.” Another important aspect is getting students excited about the latest trends in robotics and artificial intelligence.
Students who are interested, he says, should join them on IEConnects and follow the IE Robotics Club on LinkedIn, where they’re posting all about the latest technologies, including AI models. “My advice to someone who wants to get started in robotics is to be passionate about it!”
Manuel Sanroman, co-founder
The IE Robotics Club’s supportive and innovative environment is key to the development of new projects, Manuel says. Recently, the club has been working on a robotic arm project—the first they can actually touch and feel, as most of the work up to this point has been programming-based.
According to him, the IE Robotics Club is looking for “people who will be involved, people who come here to develop their products—not people who just want to play around. We want people who want to be here every week.”
Vera Prohaska, student and research lead
In addition to studying the Bachelor in Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence, Vera also leads research at the IE Robotics Club. She helps club members organize their projects and introduces potential projects on which students could work.
One of the projects the club wants to develop, for example, is based on autonomous navigation through reinforcement learning, using the Robotics & AI Lab’ state-of-the-art camera. The access afforded to the club allows for interesting projects that could not be developed in a classroom environment.
IE Robotics Club members are able to see theoretical applications come to life, bolstering in-classroom learning with tangible projects. As Vera says, “it’s a completely different approach. Rather than just programming and creating software, you’re actually connecting the dots.”