How can you contribute to the open-source ROS and robotics community?

As ROS is used by hobbyists, academics and professionals alike, when contributing to ROS you are also helping to bridge between the these three areas of robotics. Allowing learnings from each to be shared by the others. When companies allow their developers to contribute to the Open-source ROS and robotics community that also gives the company a great reputation within this community.

Contributing has ONE really big advantage: you need to DO stuff.# And that forces you to learn, to go back and forth through material, and as a consequence, you are learning the methods, the basic structure, the known and unknown rules and, if you are not careful - you might end up making a few friends along the way.

There are many ways to contribute. The simplest one is using the code, reporting bugs or ask and answer questions in the forum. The more complex but also more impactful are maintaining a package or drive entire projects. While a lot of individuals are heavily contributing to many packages, i personally think that companies should consider controbuting. We are seeing development within our company that is not at the core of our IP and that we are sure it helps woth problems everybody has. This is exactly the spot where companies could contribute back easily and make an impact. It improves the code quality (community will review and give input) and it helps the community. This approach can of course also be applied beyond the scope of ROS

Open Robotics is an open-source robotics and automation community. Contributing to code, documenting code, answering forum queries, attending ROS events, creating a ROS project, mentoring new users, writing about ROS, translating documentation, and sponsoring Open Robotics are ways to help the community. These activities let users learn, share, and improve ROS. Popular online forums for finding and contributing to open-source projects are ROS Answers and Discourse. Attending ROS events lets users learn about new advances and meet other users. Open Robotics accepts contributions from ROS beginners and experts alike.

The main benefit of contributing is building a network and expertise profile in robotics. Besides that, getting feedback on your work and deep-dive into robotics-software problems with people from around the world are incredibly rewarding.

You can just pick your favourite project and reach out to the people who are already contributing. Very often something is missing, or they need help with a specific problem. You might or might not be able to help, but discussing problems can help with the thinking part and thus contribute to solving the problem. Not only career-wise but for your own good: start contributing with your own projects! Document them, write about them, take pictures or make videos and share them! By doing this, you are learning, becoming part of the community AND you are building up a portfolio of your work - employers love it!

One of the most effective ways of communication is story telling. A story is a package of little pieces of information strung together. So if you can share your journey from ideation to execution, it can have a huge practical contribution to the extended ROS community. Here is a recipe (there can be many): share vision/problem, explain why you want to solve that problem, describe potential approaches, explain how ROS or robotics helps, and describe the packages you used and your way of approaching the problem. Be sure to end with results even if it was a failure (most will be).

I believe and based on my experience with my team, the below are the most effective contributing ways: - Writing or Editing proper Documentation - Community Support and Education - Reporting Issues and Submitting Patches on several platforms - Developing and sharing New Packages

Contributing to the open-source ROS and robotics community offers diverse avenues to enhance your skills and knowledge while making a significant impact. Whether you're a seasoned developer or a curious beginner, there's a role for you to play. Report issues to improve ROS quality and reliability, submit patches to fix bugs, or develop new packages to extend ROS functionality. Enhance ROS usability by writing documentation, support fellow users by answering questions, and promote ROS by organizing events. Explore these resources to kickstart your contribution journey: ROS Answers, Stack Overflow, Reddit, ROS Discourse, and ROS Wiki.

If you are about to pick something, figure out what part of robotics you like the most and focus on that within ROS. Then stick to it for multiple years :)

Be active in a working group you are interested in, and take over responsibility for the tasks assigned to you. Respect the time of other contributors by providing high-quality contributions that are tested, documented, and clear. Respect the different views of other community members. Those are the biggest strength of ROS in general.

My best computer scientists students were all early contributors to open-source projects. This is such a great experience ! People sometimes also underestimate all the small contributions that benefits for all: fixing minor display, spelling mistakes, feedback of what appear not coherent. ROS 2 in addition provides from the start pre-commit and CI to make sure that any contribution is following good software practices.

Code Contributions: 1. ROS Packages: Contribute to existing ROS packages or create new ones to address specific needs. 2. Bug Fixes: Help identify and fix bugs in existing ROS packages. 3. New Features: Implement new features that can enhance the functionality of ROS. Documentation: 1. Improve Documentation: Enhance the documentation for existing packages or create new documentation for features that lack clear explanations. 2. Tutorials: Create tutorials to help users understand and use ROS more effectively.

When considering contributing to ROS WGs (working groups), join their meetings. Then, you will best understand the most burning topics and which kind of help is needed the most.

Remember that contributing to open source is not limited to programming skills; various skills, including documentation, design, testing, and community building, are valuable. Start by exploring ROS packages, identifying areas where you can contribute, and reaching out to the community through ROS forums, GitHub, or mailing lists to get involved. Your contributions can have a significant impact on the development and adoption of ROS and robotics technologies.

Never be afraid to ask questions, report bugs, contribute to open-source packages, or create packages, regardless of whether you are a beginner or at an advanced level of expertise. We all have something valuable to contribute to the ROS community.

Learn ROS basics, join the community, contribute to documentation, report bugs, write code, enhance existing packages, create new ones, improve simulation environments, promote ROS through content, and collaborate with fellow developers. Follow project guidelines, respect licensing, and be open to feedback. Your contributions, no matter how small, make a valuable impact on the ROS and robotics community.