The International Micro-mechanisms Contest in Tokyo March 23 was a showcase for some of Asia's brightest minds in robotics. Taiwan's team from Dayeh University crushed the competition this year, winning 33 out of 36 awards. In the process, they defeated representatives from top schools, such as the Tokyo Institute of Technology. Students and faculty back home were glad to hear the news. "We were all very proud of their achievement," Hsu Shu-yu, a 20-year-old electrical engineering student, said April 17. "It was the first time I really felt like a part of Dayeh."
The team, mostly made up of students from Dayeh's Graduate School of Electrical Engineering, participated in the same contest last year. They won six prizes, going up against teams from universities in China, Japan and Thailand.
The 2007 repeat victory of Dayeh's micro-mechanisms sent a message to the industrial design community in Japan. "A professor from a university specializing in telecommunications said that the winners were all Japanese universities just two or three years ago," said Assistant Professor Pan Tien-tsz April 17. He received a doctorate in electrical engineering from the University of New Orleans and after graduating, helped design ships in the United States during the early 1990s. Pan currently heads Dayeh's micro-mechanism team. "This year, we took almost all the trophies," he continued. "They mentioned that they're going to get their 'revenge.' However, they figured that it might take another two to three years to beat us."
Wang Yin-hao, the youngest member of the team, boasted about how their new robot design helped them win the barrier-crossing category. In that event, machines ran through three kinds of obstacles--pillars, walls and a sand pit--on a board measuring 10 centimeters by 50 centimeters. "Almost every robot in the race failed to cross the pit except ours," Wang said April 17. "The secret was that none of their robots were equipped with a cover to prevent sand from getting into the motor, which was what we did for ours." Before they went to Japan, Wang said they tested the robot's maneuverability by putting fine grains of sand in a pit and doing trial runs.
In the sumo wrestling category, the team modified their robots' shovel design, which was as thin and sharp as a razor like last year, but was made into a triangular shape. Ciu Cun-chi, a first-year student in the electrical engineering doctoral program, explained that it was easier to get the triangular shovel under an opponent and flip it upside down. "But the real trick is in the size of the motor. The new specifications for the wire-controlled robot are 1.5 centimeters by 1.5 centimeters by 2 centimeters, smaller than last year's 2- centimeter-cubed requirement. We had to redesign our motor so that it would generate maximum torque," said Pan.
For a university such as Dayeh, located in Changhua County, the team's victory was a rare piece of good news. The university faced dwindling enrollment, which forced school authorities to seek more financial support elsewhere and concentrate on niches, such as electrical engineering, mechanical engineering and alternative energy.
Dayeh is known for inventing a fuel-efficient car that could run for 860 kilometers on one liter of gas. In 2006, Dayeh won a US$1.6 million Excellence in Education grant from the Ministry of Education, in recognition for its accomplishments in engineering.
Dayeh University President Yen Hong-sen said April 17 that the average academic performance of students who entered his school was lower than those at national universities. Nevertheless, Yen said that Dayeh could become a training ground for top students through the incorporation of German-style apprenticeship education. This process would involve professors working more closely with students as mentors and giving students more hands-on experience by doing projects. The micro-mechanism team's success in Japan proved this educational philosophy was valid, he claimed.
In the meantime, the university was also trying to recruit students for its graduate programs. Tsai Wei-yi, a first-year doctoral student in mechanical engineering, was an example of the school's ability to retain students. After receiving a master's degree from Dayeh, he applied for programs to continue his studies. He passed up a chance to get his doctorate from National Central University, one of the top-ten national universities in Taiwan. While deciding between Dayeh and NCU, Tsai realized there was one thing he did not want to give up: being a member of Dayeh's award-winning micro-mechanism team. That gave him the kind of pride and sense of achievement that no other university could have provided.
Write to Alexander Chou at alexchou@mail.gio.gov.tw