The Poppy Station’s Association
Poppy Station brings together players from the world of business, research, training, culture and education who share a common vision: robotics is an opportunity when it is mastered and put at the service of mankind.
Within this framework, Poppy Station aims at developing and preserving robotic ecosystems and associated open source or free technologies, in all fields where their use can allow this development and preservation, in a spirit of transparency and openness. The association pays particular attention to the fields of fundamental and applied research as well as education.
Poppy Station is the result of a transfer of Inria’s research from its open-source Poppy robotic ecosystem to an external multi-partner structure. The Poppy ecosystem includes software and hardware tools for creating and programming robots, as well as educational content for education and training, and a large interdisciplinary community of users. This ecosystem was created and developed by Inria’s Flowers team, with the aim of facilitating the experimentation and creation of innovative robotic tools in the fields of education, research and the arts. In particular, several tools from this ecosystem have appeared particularly adapted to the needs :
- education (pedagogical robotics), in a context where digital science teaching is coming to the classroom on a large scale. Thus, within the framework of the Poppy Education and Persevere projects, several dozen high schools and colleges, and several universities, are now using the platform as an educational tool.
- Rapid prototyping for robotics R&D projects.
Poppy Station now ensures the piloting and development of technologies, uses and financing of the Poppy ecosystem. In addition to the immediate availability of hardware and software robotics bricks as well as educational content, the structure aims to be a laboratory of robotics innovation excellence. Thanks to the modularity of the Poppy robotic platform, the range of robots will be extended to other types of robots than the existing ones (humanoid, torso, robotic arm) and new activities will be developed, notably towards the initiation to artificial intelligence.
How Poppy Station works
Half of the Board of Directors is composed of founding members and the other half of adherent members.
The Ligue de l’Enseignement hosts the association.
Any member of Poppy Station can :
- freely use the hardware and software made available
- Participate in thematic commissions
- propose developments whose validation is submitted to the Board of Directors for approval
- benefit from Poppy Station’s image
Any public or private structure interested in the activities of the association can join Poppy Station.
To join the association, the first step is to contact a member of the board of directors to inform them of the application, or to fill in the application form available on the poppystation.org website. The application will then be reviewed by the Board of Directors.
Poppy Station’s Executive Committee 2020
President: Stéphane BRUNEL (Ligue de l’enseignement)
Vice President:
David Sherman (INRIA)
Nazih Mechbal (HESAM)
Nathalie Méthélie (Canopé Martinique)
Didier Roy (Inria)
Igor Guida (Stripes Digitus Lab)
General Secretary: Stéphanie NOIRPOUDRE
Treasurer: Florence Bocquillon (Ligue de l’enseignement)