More than 800 students and 170 teams from around the world are participating in the 2007 World Robot Olympiad in Taipei, an annual competition for young people in which competing teams assemble robots to perform tasks.
The competition, which is being held this weekend, is divided into two categories.
In the regular category, teams are required to assemble robots to solve a specific problem within an hour. The open category is a project-based, exhibition style competition in which the teams present robot designs.
PHOTO: LIAO CHEN-HUEI, TAIPEI TIMES
Teams in both categories are divided into three age groups: elementary school students, junior high school students and senior high school students.
The teams went into action yesterday on the floor of the National Taiwan University gymnasium with teachers, family members and friends watching in the stands.
The participants had to assemble robots with Lego bricks and controllers such as light, sound and temperature sensors.
The rules state the robots must accomplish assigned missions.
Topics for the competition were assigned by the Taiwanese organizers, who wanted to add local flavor to the event. For example, teams in the regular competition had to design robots that simulate the Alishan (
"Competitions like this help kids build their thinking skills, which is important for the future development of students who plan on entering engineering or related fields," said Kerry Bailey, an information technology consultant who works for the Abu Dhabi Education Council in the United Arab Emirates.
The competition helps the participants develop various skills, such as problem-solving and teamwork, Bailey said, adding that the event exposes kids to an innovative environment.
The World Robot Olympiad was established in 2004 by a committee made up of experts from universities around the world with the aim of promoting innovation and education.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater