How To Organize The Retreat

Tips by Cristiana & Nico

Start by sketching out a list of possible invited speakers and reaching out to the other groups
Check with Jan if there are any issues with any of the invited speakers.
Ask professors of each invited group for one PhD / PostDoc spokesperson from their group
Start sending emails early! People are busy, so it's hard to get them to join us.
One month before the retreat, we need to send Suzanne (from Darmstädter Haus) the list of people joining. Send forms for registration with the information you need to give her (name, birthday, etc). Try to be timely, start talking to her early, be organised and polite. Make sure people put the correct dates of arriving and leaving. Obs: Communication with Darmstädter Haus is in German -> the German speaking organizer should handle this.
After the first time sending Suzanne all the excel lists, there will constantly be updates because people change their plans. Always update the lists and regularly send the updated ones to Suzanne. In the same email add a short changelog such that it is easy for her to adapt the registration.
Sketch a preliminary schedule as soon as you can. Make sure to have something well-defined a few weeks before. You can look at the pages from the previous retreats for inspiration.
To have more control of what's happening, make sure to have a plan --- for content and time --- for all the sessions. We did that mostly by creating presentations.
Lots of things can go wrong, and the schedule might change, be ready to adapt and be sure to keep everyone in the loop.
Update the website. You will need to create a page for next year and then replace it in the main one.
Create a new discord server for the retreat. Before the retreat starts still use email as the main communication tool as some people, especially professors, will not join the discord right away or at all.
Make sure there is nothing missing in the things to bring, and also send this list to everyone by email.
Delegate the night activities (Werewolf, chess, etc), the excursion organisation and the driver organisation.
Cristiana has the stuff for putting posters and name tags for 2025. If I don't lose it in a year, you can ask me, otherwise: you need double sided tape to put up the posters, nametags, pens, markers. Scissors can be helpful.
Make sure to have adapters and presenters.
Bring volleyball(!), Frisbee, and other things for the activities.
It is beneficial if one of the main organizers has access to a (rental) car, as speakers (or other people) often need rides to and from the train station in Oberstdorf.
You can tell invited speakers that they can take the train until Oberstdorf and then you can pick them up from there.
Constantly check the weather forecast 1-2 weeks before the retreat and plan accordingly. You also might need to change the excursion day during the retreat so tell the people organizing the excursions to be and book flexible.

Resources

Google Drive folder for 2025: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/17gtNx09YRXjy4Z2qITeNnRsBoMiNSDOY?usp=sharing
Folder for 2024: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1xGS250j1t_lmN2wsdz4aNFJtZHHO9z4S?usp=sharing

Ideas for future retreats

Focus groups seem to be a little complicated to pull out, especially in 3h. One idea could be something more useful for most PhDs --> Come up with a paper idea.
We had some trouble coming up with plausible speakers (EU based, etc). To help you out, we have added a suggestion space for future speakers in the evaluation form this year: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1O7Fe_DvXAk5hHBRSwjP792z-X-yvMqVLG-8AiMAGplk/edit?usp=sharing
The 2 hour slot for talk was great! Make sure to let the speaker know they can do a 40min-1h hour presentation and we will fill the time with questions or discussions offline, etc.
While the 2h slot was great, some people asked for a break in between.
Some people loved the more chill retreat, some didn't like the holes in the program and all the IAS specific sessions. One idea is to have some activities to fill in this time. E.g., Journal reading Club, Coding Session, brainstorming session etc.
Kahoot is horrible to use, but still a lot of fun :D
It could be good to have options for bad weather excursions. Jan mentioned this was fun in the rain (but maybe double check): https://www.breitachklamm.com/

Modules (from 2023)

Module name	Description	Exp. Duration
Poster session	Presentation of research in form of an A1/A2 poster.	1h - 2 h
Tutorial session	A tutorial provides an overview of the research field rather than specific individual works.	90 min - 3 h
Talk session	Invited Talks: Research talk of an invited speaker/expert including a Q&A Short break: Provides the opportunity to have a chat with the invited speaker Research Talk: A brief research talk including a Q&A	45 min - 1h 15 min 10 min - 30min per talk
Focus group session*	Discussion: Divide into groups and assign one question per group. Preparation: Give the groups time to prepare a brief presentation. Presentation: One representative from each group presents their outcomes.	45 min - 1h 15 min 5 min - 10 min per group
Workshop session**	Mini tutorial: introduction into the topic. (not mandatory) Research talks: brief research talks. Panel discussion or debate: exchange views and opinions. Group discussion: Q&A session	10 min - 30min 10 min - 25 min per talk 15 min - 30 min 10 min - 20 min
Dinner talks session	Short ted-like talks directly after dinner.	10 min - 15 min

\* To ensure we have enough topics for the focus group session, ask the participants to contribute questions before the retreat. During the retreat, organize an interactive session where participants can add questions to a board. We have the backup set if we run out of questions during this session.
\** Try to outsource the organization of the workshop sessions. Therefore, assign a fellow student that works in the field to organize it.

Reach out to invited Speakers

Mail Template

Dear Marc Toussaint

I hope this email finds you well. I am a Ph.D. student at the Technical University Darmstadt in the Intelligent Autonomous Systems group (IAS) led by Jan Peters. We would like to invite you as a guest speaker to the 8th International Workshop on Intelligent Autonomous Systems (IWIAS).

The IWIAS consists of ourselves and an `extended family` of research groups, such as Gerhard Neumann’s Autonomous Learning Robots Lab (ALR), KIT, and Jens Kober’s group from the Cognitive Robotics Department (CoR), TU Delft. The workshop is held at the Kleinwalsertal, Austria, from 13.08.2023 to 20.08.2023. During the event, we feature research talks, workshops, and focus groups on robotics and decision-making.

A deep understanding of machine learning, optimization, and reasoning plays a critical role in addressing the fundamental challenges of modern robotics. With this in mind, it would be a great pleasure if you could give a research talk or tutorial on the intersection of robotics and AI. Your vast expertise in this field would be a tremendous contribution to our retreat and would make the great time we have there even better.

We would be more than happy to discuss the details further and provide any additional information you may need. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to contact me, <Other PhDs> or Jan (in CC) directly.

Kind regards,