The FIRA 2012 RoboWorld Cup was recently held in Bristol, England. As in past years, the TKU Robot Research Team dominated, bringing home 5 gold, 3 silver, and 3 bronze medals. The Robot Research Team is supervised by three professors from the Department of Electrical Engineering: Dr. Wong Ching-Chang, Dr. Chi-Tai Cheng, and Dr. Shi-An Li. It consists of two separate smaller teams: the RoboSot Research Team (RoboSot refers to “Robot Soccer”) and the Huro Research Team (Huro refers to “Humanoid Robot”).
This year, the world champion TKU team took part in two of the competition categories, known as RoboSot and HuroCup (Humanoid Robot Cup). The TKU RoboSot Research Team was made up of the team Captain He Cheng-Yao, as well as team members Yu Chia-ren, Chan Hsiang-min, Lin Yi Nu Yun, Yang Jing-yao, Hsieh Ming-hua, Tsao Che-wei, and Wu Yi-ting. The supervising professor for the RoboSot Team, Dr. Wong Ching-Chang, commented that the team’s focus this time was on creating powerful RoboSot equipment. Starting from 2003, he noted, the TKU RoboSot Team has been crowned RoboSot world champions a total of 8 times, in 2003, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2012. Dr. Wong further explained that the robots created by the team are each equipped with a video camera, notebook computer, control hardware, and circuit boards. Moreover, while robot processors were previously developed by external researchers, starting from 2010 the TKU Robot Research Team took over the research and development of the all-important robot processor. This has led to vast advancements in the capabilities of the robots used.
The Huro Research Team was made up of the team Captain Hu Yue Yang, as well as team members Chung Hao-chia, Chen Li-feng, Chung Yi-fan, Chou Min-wei, Lin Yi-chung, Chen Bo-yan, Wu Chien-hung, Shi Ming-chun, Liu De-chi, Wang Guan-deng, Chen Shi-kai, and Chen Chi-min. The team gained placings in a number of competition categories, including Lift and Carry, Rock Climbing, Basketball, Weight Lifting, Obstacle Run, Sprint, Penalty Kicks, and the Marathon event.
