A team of 15 students from Tamkang University claimed the overall championship and prize money of NT$800,000 (US$26,666) for their intelligent machine arm at HIWIN Intelligence Robot Competition Aug. 2 in Taipei City. Winning first-place across four categories with AC servo motor-based robot Bumblebee MIT, the team achieved the best performance for the university since its debut at the event seven years ago. Tamkang trumped 18 teams from around Taiwan, including Graduate Institute of Electrical Engineering from National Taiwan University and Department of Electronic Engineering from National Formosa University, winners of second and third places, respectively. According to team leader Yu Chia-jun, a doctorate student of electrical engineering at the university, Bumblebee MIT impressed the judges with its performance in the most challenging event category: domino effect. The machine arm successfully placed 50 dominos in a line within five minutes and knocked all of them down with a ball, the only robot to accomplish the feat. Bumblebee MIT, whose six axis cover a working range of 1 meter, also excelled in three other categories: hitting a golf ball with a bat into two holes, penning three specified Chinese characters and putting colored balls or square objects in holes of corresponding colors and shapes within a time limit. Developed solely by the Tamkang students under the guidance of professor Wong Ching-chang and assistant professor Tsai Chi-yi, Bumblebee MIT has great potential to replace humans in factory production lines, according to Yu. Launched in 2008, the competition has attracted 144 teams to date and proved an important event bolstering the development of the local intelligent robot industry. (DF-JSM)