Research Express@NCKU

Creators of the NCKU AI Robot: The Advanced Intelligent Robots and System Lab of NCKU, led by Prof. Tzuu-Hseng S. Li (left 4); chief designers Mr. Chun-Ming Chang (left 3) and Mr. Shao-Wei Lai (left 5)

Unlike the “Transformers”, whose fate was to fight against one another in a movie, the NCKU humanoid robot, aka AI Robot, has a realistic lineage, tangible existence and brighter prospects. His ( “he” is how the AI Robot will be referred to in this story) most recent accomplishments were achieved during the 13^th FIRA Robot World Cup 2008 held from July 22-25 in Qingdao, China. The records are listed as below:

Event	Ranking	Note
Penalty Kick	3
Weight Lifting	3	70 CDs; New world record
Basketball	1
Dash / Sprint	1	120 cm in 20 seconds;New world record
Obstacle Run	2
Rough Terrain Run	2
Marathon	1	48 m in 4’46”;New world record
All Round	1

Having watched the video clip of the game and witnessed his outstanding and, may I say, heroic performance in the 2008 FIRA RoboWorld Cup, I now detail the seven events below.

The Game:
1.Penalty Kick: He, just like a football player, must kick a ball into thegate. You can see him stepped forward, calculating and measuring how the ball could avoid the column and be kicked into the gate. Yes, he made it!

2.Weight Lifting: He needed to lift a stick with CDs on both ends, then he stepped forward. You can see that the CDs were so heavy that he could just move one step at a time! He then lifted the weight bar up, used his head to add support, and turned his trunk to face the right side, still trying to move forward heroically!

Weight Lifting

Penalty Kick

3.Basketball: Just like a basketball player, he leaned down first, using both hands to lift the ball; then with only the right hand, with his head moving up and down to calculate where the target basket was, he threw the ball into the basket, cool and beautiful!

The AI Robot, according to the team’s report, could have made it because of his ability to correctly recognize the position of the ball and the basket, and to exactly snatch and throw the ball with his hand. He achieved nearly 100% success in this event and ranked number 1.

Basketball