In the 25th TDK Cup National College Creative Design and Production Competition -Robots all come to fight and compete in south Taiwan, and the Department of Mechanical Engineering of Cheng Shiu University won the championship in the remote control contest and the distinguished honor award for creativity. These two awards came with NT$235k. Under the instruction of Assistant Professor Pang-Chieh Lin and Assistant Professor Shih-Chuang Chang, the aerial robotics team also won third place and received a bonus of NT$ 50,000.

The contest was fierce in the 25th TDK Cup National College Creative Design and Production Competition. The remote control event was held in both the eastern zone and the western zone, and two teams competed in either zone. The game consisted of six challenges: removing balls from a pool; crossing the mold layer and the iron tube; passing an obstacle area of traffic cones; placing a ball on a platform; plucking a plate off a counter and inserting the plate into a square hole on the counter. These tasks aimed to assess the maneuverability of robots during obstruction negotiation, including picking up and placing large and small objects. This was a test on the mobility, controllability, and balancing of robots.   

While Cheng Shiu University was not a promising contestant at the start, once appointed, the TDK team was determined to impress. After several victorious rounds, the team competed with Minghsin University of Science and Technology in the final game and won the championship with a narrow margin of 5 points. The team also received the distinguished honor award for creativity. It was the first time the same team from the Department of Mechanical Engineering won two major awards in the remote control event.  

The participating juniors from the Department of Mechanical Engineering included Hsin-hung Lin, Wei-chieh Tseng, Ming-yu Hsieh, and Chia-lung Hung. From signing up for the TDK competition to the end of the game, they grew and learned a lot. The team members were engaged in constant discussions of robotic designs after the study camp, and they went through each hurdle in the competition under the guidance of teachers and senior classmates. All the achievements of the day came from their great efforts and teamwork.   

Professor Jen-chou Hsiung, who advised the Department of Mechanical Engineering, said that he has led a few TDK teams over the years and these teams had won numerous awards. However, the results this year were the most remarkable, as the remote control team won the championship and received the distinguished honor award at the same time. It felt great that the same team from the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Cheng Shiu University won two major awards together. This was due to the diligence of students, support from teachers and senior classmates, and funding from the school. 

The aerial robotics team competed in a five-challenge event: automatic take-off, green light and red light identification and stop, picking up items from Salt Mountain, cargo drops, and automatic landing. This was primarily a test of the visual recognition, auto piloting, precision, and stability of aerial robots, as well as the vehicle recalibration and code writing skills of participants.

The advisors for the aerial robotics team included Professor Pang-Chieh Lin from the Department of Industrial Engineering & Management and Professor Shih-Chuang Chang from the Department of Applied Foreign Languages. The contestants included Postgraduate Sheng-chieh Lin from the Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering, and Yen-chen Lin, Shao-hsiang Chiu, Wei-hao Huang, Pang-Chieh Lin, and Shih-Chuang Chang from the Department of Mechanical Engineering. They said that it was the first team from the university to participate in the aerial robotics event, and the team won third place in the TDK Cup National College Creative Design and Production Competition under instruction from the Ministry of Education. The greatest achievements were the team members’ hard work and the university’s great support.