It was 2pm Sunday, Sept. 1 and tension was rising at the National Science and Technology Museum in Kaohsiung, the venue of the southern Taiwan selection round of the International Robot Olympiad. Once the judge whistled and his stopwatch began ticking away, "Three Nobodies," a team of three elementary school boys, began assembling their ball-throwing robot, writing programs for it amid the cheerleading by the parents of team members and then carrying out trial runs -- all in 40 minutes.
Now it's showtime. The colorful palm-sized robot they've created with Lego blocks is ready to go. Placed at the starting line along with robots from other teams with names like "Sweeping Wind" and "Rush Forward," their robot sets out undaunted on the track at the sounding of the whistle. In two minutes, it had to carry a ping pong ball on its "arm," move 1.2m toward the the throwing line, get the ball into a goal from a distance of 60cm, and move back again. The robot that scored the most baskets won.
These were two minutes filled with increasingly intense cheerleading by anxious parents on the sideline. Some could hardly help rushing into the field to help their kids who had made mistakes in programming or who were seeing their creations fall apart.
PHOTO: COURTESY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY MUSEUM, KAOHSIUNG
At the whistle, the robot of the "Three Nobodies" had sunk 28 balls, second in the round. Combined with their winning the 3.5m robot race earlier, the team took first place in the competition's elementary school category. The team, along with five other teams that did best, will face off with 11 teams from north and central Taiwan, winners of the regional primaries, in the national finals of the International Robot Olympiad at the same venue next Sunday. More than 100 teams of elementary and junior high school students from all over Taiwan competed in the primaries.
If the "Three Nobodies" come first or second in the final, they will be entitled to represent Taiwan in November at the final of the International Robot Olympiad in Beijing, where teams from Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore and China compete in more creative robot-making.
Their winning surprised many, including Zhuang Zhi-cheng (
PHOTO COURTESY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY MUSEUM, KAOHSIUGN
"Their parents were sorry about the accident but prepared to give up. But when the kid woke up from the anaesthesia, the first thing he said was `I want to go to the game!' So they went. The winning was entirely unexpected," said Zheng Chian-yan (
The happy-go-lucky parents of these team members are the exception rather than the rule. As in the more-established Mathematics Olympiad, Physics Olympiad and Chemistry Olympiad, the Robot Olympiad has become another occasion in which parents, conscious of Taiwan's harsh education system, instill competitiveness in their kids. Little did it occur to them that cut-throat competition goes against the spirit of the game to further the concept of play and learning.
Taking part in the competition since it was first held in 1999, Zheng has seen too many parents whose sense of competition bordered on hysteria. Although the organizers meant it as a fun and friendly game, parents consider their kids' winning vital in their study in the new nine-year continuous curriculum for elementary and junior high schools.
Directed by the National Science Council and Ministry of Education, the competition issues winners certificates which are considered a great plus on application forms for senior high schools under the current diversified enrollment program for junior high school students.
"The winning certificate bears stamps of two major government agencies on it. Parents see it as a significant plus when they apply for senior high schools. In a bid to send their kids to the best schools, they try everything to encourage their kids to win. It becomes a tremendous pressure on the kids over the few months preparation time. In the end they forget that their initial motive for having their kids learn robot-making is to give them a pressure-free learning experience," Zheng said.
Many parents demanded a re-match for the most trivial of excuses during the primaries. During the southern Taiwan primary, some clouds passed over the hall's glass ceiling, blocking sunlight for a brief moment and making some of the light-sensitive racing robots stutter a bit. It roused a commotion among parents claiming unfairness and demanding a re-match. "Incidents like this always leave me feeling [they're] ridiculous," Zheng said.
Sometimes the pressure from parents keen on winning strikes Zheng as almost sad. In the northern Taiwan primary held at the Taipei International Conference Hall, he recalled, one elementary school team's robot got one ball in the basket, "and the whole team started jumping up and down in great joy. Their parents were also happy. They said they never managed to succeed during preparation," he said.
The following afternoon, another team scored more than 20 balls -- quite a feat. However, the three teammates broke out crying. "None of us understood why at the time. They later told us they did better during preparation. That stressful craze for winning, reinforced by their parents, is kind of sad."
What it takes for a kid to win, according to Liu Ting (
Wu attributed the strength of Taiwanese kids, who won the gold medal in the junior high school category in 2000 and the best style of animal robots in the elementary school category last year, to the fact that many play with blocks and computer programming in their free time.
Despite the controversies, grown-ups who took part in the games had gained no less than the kids from the experience. "When I first let [my son] play with blocks and learn robot-making, I had to help him from time to time. In the end, I became intrigued by robots, too," Zhuang said. "During the game, when some problem came up, we who stood on the line were so worried and tried to think up a solution for them, but they usually came up with something surprisingly better," he added.
Zheng, who currently trains school teachers in robot-making, agrees. "Often we found kids thinking in a straightforward way in solving problems that few grown-ups are capable of. They were learning to see clearly how to achieve things with the help of electronic devices. Many instructors, like me, learned a lot from them."
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