Tamkang got the green light from MOE to set up a Master’s Program in robotics engineering, making it the first of its kind in Taiwan. It is an upgrade from the robotic soccer game lab attached to the Department of Electrical Engineering (EE). The lab has won several FIRA games and its 2003 crown in RoboSot is the best so far.

The program is divided into two tracks: Human Intelligence EvoSystem and Embedded System. The Chair of EE, Wong Ching-chang states that such a program is crucial to robotic development in Taiwan, which will be one of the cutting edge technologies in the 21 century. Although this technology has been well-developed in Europe, the US and Japan, Taiwan still has a fairly good chance to make some impact on the world market. With the inauguration of the Master’s program, which will receive inputs from the existing talents and resources in the university’s engineering and IT departments, it is hoped that such an influence can come sooner rather than later. However, for that to happen, Prof. Wong pointed out that Taiwan needs to overcome the issue of production cost at the outset. He is confident that with Taiwanese know-how in mass-production, it is only a matter of time the cost issue will be surmounted.

Along with this program, two other new Master’s programs in IT and Information and Communication as well as Curriculum and Instruction have been given the go-ahead from MOE to recruit students in 2007. (~ Ying-hsueh Hu )