RoboCon MIT

Author: Ariel Anders, PhD | Date: 2018-04-20 | Category: Robotics Community

Co-organizing a student-run robotics conference and building its static web platform at MIT.

RoboCon MIT

RoboCon event portal showcase
RoboCon event portal showcase

RoboCon MIT was a student-run research conference organized to bring together robotics groups across MIT—including CSAIL, MechE, AeroAstro, and the Media Lab. I co-organized the event and built the conference website at robocon.mit.edu, which was one of my first web design projects and remains online today.

Goals

  • Connect Campus Labs: Give graduate students and postdocs a shared space to present hardware demos, posters, and talks across departments.
  • Centralize Event Info: Provide a single page where attendees could check the schedule, find room locations at the Media Lab, and see submission guidelines.

What I Did

  • Built the Website: Designed and wrote the front-end HTML/CSS from scratch to display the multi-track schedule, speaker lists, and event details on a simple, responsive page.
  • Deployed on Athena: Hosted and maintained the site files in MIT’s Athena web_scripts environment, updating schedules and speaker info as the program came together.
  • Handled Submissions: Coordinated the abstract intake for spotlight talks and poster sessions across topics like manipulation, control, and soft robotics.
  • Helped Run the Event: Managed day-of logistics, room transitions, and attendee check-in at the Media Lab.

Results

  • Gathered over 150 MIT researchers, students, and local industry attendees for a day of talks and demos.
  • Kept the event logistics and schedule running smoothly through a lightweight site that needed no complex backend maintenance.