Issue link: https://htpgraphics.uberflip.com/i/1385717
OUTRO 65 COMMUNITY Sharing, fostering relationships At the heart of RAIN's working approaches is one centred on community. While the furtherance of research is valuable, we are acutely aware of our responsibility to feed back into the local and broader RAIN community. We have arranged events to help share our research progress, to share expertise and to build relationships so that solving challenges is made easier. COMMERCIALISATION The consideration of commercialisation really sets RAIN apart from many other academic-led endeavours. By thinking about how a system or technique could be commercialised, or be used in a daily operational setting, the RAIN research naturally becomes more aligned to industrial challenges. This focus means that funding invested in the RAIN team is much more likely to be of value to the industrial stakeholders. It also means that conversations with designers and manufacturers can begin at a more mature state, rather than retrospectively assessing a developed technique or technology from scratch. DEPLOYMENTS Tests at user sites Naturally, we have many lab-based demonstrations of technology but there is a genuinely unique feeling when a piece of RAIN kit is deployed on a user's site. Each deployment represents; - the successful completion of site-specific (and often facility-specific) access requirements - an opportunity to trial the RAIN kit in a real industrial- setting for development feedback - the potential to contribute a helpful output (e.g. radiation measurements, or photo's of inaccessible areas) - a step towards robot deployments becoming easier and 'business as usual' - an opportunity for each site / facility to demonstrate their support of robotics