TKU Robot Football team, led by Dr. Wong Ching-chang, Chair of Dept. of Electrical Engineering, attended the “2008 FIRA European Robot Football Cup” in June and won the championship by defeating teams of Korea, British, Singapore, and Canada. The same TKU team attended the “2008 FIRA Humanoid Robot World Cup Soccer Tournament (HuroCup)” at Qingdao, China, from July 22 to 25, and won championships respectively in the sections of “RoboSot League” and “HuroSot,” matches of running, lifting and kicking. TKU won the championship in the “RoboSot League” for the fourth time (dating from year 2003).
In the European Cup, the TKU representatives are Chang Hsian-ming and Hu Yueh-yang, both third year graduate students. They attended the matches in Switzerland and Austria. Hu Yueh-yang indicates that “since the matches were played in two different places, we had to make good use of the time to retest and modify the robots to make them accommodate to the new field and situation with good function, which was the greatest challenge of this game.” He believes that through the matches, participants from different countries can not only share and exchange experience but also make new friends and practice foreign languages.
In the world Huro Cup, TKU team has developed new robot players, with whole-view vista and four-wheeled flexible mobility. Because the game field has been enlarged one time, the difficulty is increased. The participants snapped the images of the field and created a visual system for the robots. The bright visual capacity and mobility are two keys to their success. Team leader, Liu Chih-cheng, a second year PhD graduate, indicates that the charm of TKU robot players has attracted the other participants to take photos of them and inquire TKU participants. Hence, the tournament became a research convention.
The matches of HuroSot are divided into seven sections. TKU team beat participants from Taiwan, China, Singapore, Korea and won three championships. The fifth generation of TKU robot had not been modified to its best condition; therefore, the tournament was played by the old fourth generation humanoid robot. The TKU teammates has burned the midnight oil to test the robot and solve related problems. Their teamwork and lasting experience help them to win the matches in running, lifting and kicking. In the lifting match, the robot player has lifted 60 compact discs, breaking the record of 44 discs. Team leader Huang Kai-hsiang, third year PhD graduate, indicates that “the process of the game and the performance of other participants are sources of learning, which would benefit our future development.”
Chair Wong Ching-chang remarks that TKU students have progress year by year through the research, practices, matches, and communication with other teams. He upholds the principle of “learning from doing” and expects the TKU team increase the speed of robot modification in terms of mobility, and technology. ( ~Chen Chi-szu )
