The diamond grand prize for teams at the tenth annual Golden Silicon Awards went to students in the Department of Electrical Engineering at Kun Shan University for their smart clothes dryer.
The awards, sponsored by Macronix International, were announced Aug. 7. The competition attracted 616 students representing 278 teams from colleges and universities. Premier Wu Den-yih and former Academia Sinica President Lee Yuan-tseh were invited to hand out the prizes to the winners. Some NT$30 million (US$945,000) in prize money has been awarded to winners of this science contest over the past ten years.
Lin Wei-zhe and three of his classmates at Kun Shan developed a smart, energy-saving, low-temperature clothes dryer that is able to detect the temperature and humidity in the dryer and automatically turn off when the clothes are dry. In addition, the dryer automatically reduces the temperature as it tumble-dries clothes and controls the cooling process.
Lin, Chen Jian-yu, Chen He-an and Wang Hong-wei started working on the invention when they were juniors at the university. As soon as class would end, the team would head to the laboratory, often staying there until dawn developing the machine. Lin said the clothes dryers on the market currently all operate based on timers. Even if the clothes are already dry, the dryer will continue to run as long as the preset time has not been reached. In addition, the cooling period is fixed at 15 minutes.
Lin added that if the dryer has a large load of clothes, the 15 minutes of cooling time may not be sufficient, meaning that users may burn their hands when taking clothes out of the dryer.
The group decided to install a temperature sensor at the air vent, and this device operates in conjunction with a single-chip microprocessor. Upon detecting that the clothes in the dryer are dry, the machine will stop with the heat and begin the cooling process.
When the temperature of the clothes approaches that of room temperature, the dryer will turn off automatically. This means that people will not burn their hands when taking clothes out. The entire cycle can be set by pressing just one button.
Lin said taking a dryer that holds seven kilograms of clothes as an example, a person who uses the dryer that the team developed will be able to save NT$1,100 on electricity costs each year in comparison with an existing energy-saving dryer. The difference is even more noticeable for traditional dryers: the annual cost savings comes to NT$8,000. The team has already applied for a patent for their invention and they want to have it produced and sold on the market in the future.
Some of the other winning products were equally impressive. A team from National Taiwan University that included Lai Rui-xin, Chen Jie-li, Gao Jie-qi and Wu Bo-zhen designed an image generation chip that makes playing the Wii game system even more realistic. Players are able to change themselves into the world's top tennis players, such as the Williams sisters, and take to the court to engage in battle. The team won the gold prize for this invention.
Meanwhile, many older automobiles suffer from unresponsive brakes. Chienkuo Technology University students Lin Zhi-yu, Lin You-hao and Li Shi-fan attached a vacuum pump to the breaks, which effectively resolves this problem. The group came away with the silver prize for this simple yet innovative solution.
The bronze prize went to National Taiwan University's Hou Yu-hsiang and Southern Taiwan University of Technology's Xiao Jing-long, who collaborated in developing a mobile drip robot. The robot will follow patients who are being treated, and when a drip is almost finished, the robot will notify the nursing station. Alarms will also be set off if the patient falls down.
(This article originally appeared in The Liberty Times Aug. 8.)