TKU’s FIRA humanoid robots once again won high honor, with nine individual and one group championships, and two second places, in the “2007 Taiwan Intelligent Robot Practice Competition” held on October 19 and 20 in Southern Taiwan University. Some twenty local universities, including Cheng Kung University, Southern Taiwan University, Chang-Gung University, gathered in Tainan for the yearly competition. TKU team consists of 37 members, including Ph.D, master graduate, and undergraduate students, and is led by Dr. Wong Ching-chang, chair of Dept. of Electrical Engineering. The items of TKU’s champions include group champion and six first places in FIRA humanoid robot comprehensive game, one FIRA middle-sized robot football game, RoboCup and ro-robot, RoboCup middle-sized robot football. Besides, TKU team won second places in FIRA 5-5 Simulation, and Olympic WRO Robot game.

The robot team of Dept. of Electrical Engineering has been TKU’s representative team in national and international competitions with splendid achievement. Since 2003, it has been the national representative team in world championship. In the July of 2007, it won the world robot football champion for the third time. Dr. Wong indicates that since the honorable recognition in July, the TKU team has invested night-and-day efforts in developing new technology for and modifying the function of the robots.

The younger members, senior undergraduates, even under the pressure of preparing for recommendation examination for graduate school, burn their midnight oil for testing the robots. Hu Yueh-yang, a second year master graduate who had attended the game since he was a junior, remarks that “every member has made one’s greatest effort in the game, and when we were tired up, we took a nap on the desk of the game court; I think our sweat and passion are worthwhile.” Team leader in FIRA middle-sized robot football, Ho Cheng-yao, first year graduate, indicates that “we won the game without too many pain, for we got many experiences in games and the opponents were mostly greenhorns, not very skilled in directing their robots.” Many teams from other universities were surprised at the fact that the leader of TKU team was only a first year graduate.

TKU team contains four freshmen members, including Chen Chien-ting, who won the second place in WRO robot game in his first attempt. Chen remarks that “our team is very well-organized in the division of efforts, and when we have encountered problems, responsible and passionate seniors will come to aid, or cheer us up with warm food when we burn the midnight oil.” One team senior, Chan Hsian-ming, second year graduate, responds that “our junior school sisters and brothers are excellent, and they reveal unusual talent in their early year. I believe the other teams were amazed at our experience, expertise, and invincible teamwork.”

This semester, Dept. of Electrical Engineering has opened experiment courses in logo robot, to set up the foundation for robotics. Dr. Wong Ching-chang, chair of the department, indicates that with successful integration of research resources and energy, I believe we can create better and more stable robots to win more champions nationally and internationally. (~ Chen Chi-szu )