Thu, Jun 01, 2017 page4

• Life lessons for engineering graduates

  TEN YEARS LATER: A documentary director tracked down the NTU students who competed in the 2006 World Solar Challenge in Australia to see how they went from there

  • Staff writer, with CNA
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  A sequel to the 2006 documentary For More Sun (夢想無限), about the exploits of a professor and his students who built a solar vehicle from scratch to compete in a race in Australia, was released nation-wide on May 19.

  For More Sun II tracks the lives of 10 of the students in the team a decade after the race and looks at the work of professor Cheng Jung-ho (鄭榮和), who still teaches mechanical engineering at National Taiwan University (NTU).

  The 100-minute documentary sequel, produced by Joint Entertainment International Inc, details how Cheng’s hands-on teaching influenced the often unconventional, but successful, careers of his students.

  

  Ming Lin, center front, who has a leading role in the documentary For More Sun II, a documentary about National Taiwan University’s Formosun solar car team, is pictured in an undated photograph. Lin helped found Booster Machine, a provider of automated equipment.

  Photo: CNA

  In 2005, Cheng was scrambling to raise money for his team to participate in the 3,000km World Solar Challenge in Australia when he met James Liu (劉嘉明), the production company’s president, through mutual friends. Moved by the dedication of the team members, Liu invited director Lee Jong-wang (李中旺) to film the solar car’s construction process and the NTU team’s participation in the race.

  The NTU students and their car, called FORMOSUN-III, finished fifth among the 22 teams in the race, ahead of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. For More Sun was released in Taiwan in 2006 to great acclaim.

  Ten years later, director Lee Jia-hua (李家驊) took up the baton and tracked down Cheng and 10 of the NTU team members to film a sequel, which he shot in Taiwan and the US over a 20-month period.

  

  National Taiwan University professor Cheng Jung-ho, left, who guided the students on NTU’s Formosun solar car team, attends the premiere of the documentary For More Sun II about the team in Taipei on May 19.

  Photo: CNA

  Several team members are working overseas at prominent auto companies such as Porsche and Tesla Inc, while others are playing important roles in Taiwan’s industries.

  However, whatever their field of work, they all credit their unique experience as members of the 2005 solar car team with part of their success.

  Then-team captain Kevin Chang (張智凱) is now head of an advanced research and development center at the Taichung headquarters of Giant Taiwan Co, one of the world’s largest manufacturers of bicycles, including advanced carbon fiber models.

  While many of his peers were seeking jobs in the lucrative semiconductor sector after graduation, Chang made a “bold decision” to work in a traditional industry, creating carbon fiber bike frames, he said.

  “When people heard that, they all said: ‘You’ve got a doctorate and you’re working at Giant repairing bikes?’” he said in the documentary.

  However, Chang’s job is more advanced than that. Adopting the simulation and analysis techniques he learned when working on solar cars, Chang designs safer bicycles and shortened the time it takes Giant to manufacture them.

  “What many people think about is the kind of jobs that would bring a high income,” he said. “I’ll do this and that, and then it’ll be plain sailing afterward — but this job you’re doing, would it really be worth doing in five or 10 years?”

  The solar car experience has also carried over into the work of another team member, Mort Lin (林松慶), who now heads the powertrain department at Taiwan-based “smart” scooter maker Gogoro Inc.

  Lin said Cheng taught him how to “make things from scratch” using minimal resources and labor.

  That training became a valuable asset when he began building laboratories and production lines for Gogoro, a start-up, Lin said, adding that building a solar car also prepared him to design an energy-efficient vehicle.

  Solar panels do not generate a lot of power, so for a solar car to run fast, far and steady, the engineering must be top notch, Lin said.

  Meanwhile, Yu Chen-yen (游振彥) has been working in the US auto industry, first at Tesla and now at SF Motors.

  Yu said he misses the camaraderie of the NTU solar car team.

  “Since I started working, I’ve been searching for that same feeling of everyone pulling together as a team,” he said.

  In the documentary, Yu raises the issue of the brain drain from Taiwan to places like Silicon Valley in California.

  “These people are like big trees,” he said. “Taiwan has to offer them fertile soil. Franky, it’s not just about money. It’s about the stage.”

  Outside the auto industry, the success of the solar car team members has been no less remarkable.

  Ming Lin (林明賢) is deputy manager of reasearch and development at Booster Machine Co, an automated equipment provider he helped found that specializes in robotic deburring, grinding and polishing.

  He said that after he graduated from university, he found a job at a manufacturing company, but quickly discovered that he was not cut out for the work.

  “Working in the electronics industry could easily leave you isolated,” he said. “In the end, you might not have any emotional attachment to the products you’re making.”

  Ming Lin teamed up with a friend to start Booster Machine, an undertaking that he described as difficult, but worthwhile.

  “I’m simply rebellious,” he said, describing his inclination for tough challenges.

  He said he likes to come up with new ideas and create new products, adding that he dreams that “one day our products will soar into the sky.”

  Credited by many of the young innovators in the documentary for their aspirations and achievements, professor Cheng, 61, has been teaching at NTU’s Department of Mechanical Engineering for 26 years.

  Past students describe Cheng as a strict disciplinarian with an entrepreneurial spirit and an occasionally short temper.

  Over the years, Cheng and his students have built gliders, light aircraft, solar and electric cars, fuel-cell-powered locomotives and “smart” electric vehicles — all designed from scratch.

  While higher-education institutions in Taiwan are focused on publishing a lot of academic papers, Cheng said, he believes in the value and importance of engineering and “building things with your own hands.”

  “Taiwanese students study harder than American students,” he said. “So why is it that after four years of university our students are servicing machinery and doing manufacturing jobs, while American students are designing cars, airplanes, rockets and artificial satellites? I think it’s because we lack practical engineering experience.”

  Lee Jia-hua said he hopes that For More Sun II will inspire students to follow their hearts, “go their own way, and do what they want in life.”

  Liu hopes the film could especially reach two groups of people: dedicated teachers who feel like “lone birds” and parents who care about their children’s future.

  “The message for parents is: You should let your children do what they are good at, so they can do it well,” Liu said.
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