Student projects rescheduled and redesigned

© 2020 EPFL Students taking part in EPFL's interdisciplinary projects have had to work from home to limit the spread of COVID-19. Despite this challenge, they remain optimistic. EPFL's interdisciplinary projects give students from a variety of fields an opportunity to collaborate on real-world problem-solving. This year, project coordinators have been working closely with student teams to adapt their project plans to the constraints posed by COVID-19. When the campus closed in response to the coronavirus outbreak, the six student teams competing in the robotics competition were still drafting specifications for a new type of cleaning robot. "Everything came to a halt from one day to the next," says Alessandro Crespi, a research assistant at EPFL's Biorobotics Laboratory and the competition's coordinator. "What motivates the students is being able to physically build a robot.