NCKU Holds International Design Workshop to Propose Robot Ideas for Smart Living

National Cheng Kung University (NCKU), southern Taiwan, hosted UTokyo i.school x NCKU Smart Seed Union International Workshop September 27- 28, with more than 40 participants from the University of Tokyo (UTokyo), Japan, and universities from Taiwan including National Taiwan University (NTU) and NCKU.

At the opening ceremony on September 27, Prof. Feng-Tyan Lin, Dean of the College of Planning and Design, on behalf of NCKU extended his warm welcome to the participants and especially the guests from Japan.

He said, “This is a wonderful opportunity for us to get together brainstorming and creating something new.”

The two-day workshop themed “Creating Robot Ideas for Everyday Life” is a collaborative effort between Japan and Taiwan to bring innovation to future life style.

“The educational backgrounds of the students in this workshop are diversified. Many are from design-related areas and some of them are in engineering or computer sciences,” according to Dean Lin who is also the Principal Investigator of Smart Seed Union.

“I.school is a cross disciplinary educational program established in 2009 at the University of Tokyo,” said Dr. Hideyuki Horii, Executive Director of i.school, who led an i.school delegation including four staff members and fourteen students to join the workshop.

He said, “Robot technology has many possibilities and it can be used in daily life.”

“The question is how to find new utilization of robot technology in daily life and that’s the topic of this workshop,” Dr. Horii added.

He also noted, “The students in the workshop have to propose new products which utilize robot technology and provide new functions and values.”

A total of 15 projects featuring future life style and intelligent technology solutions were presented on the final day of the workshop.

One of the projects named “MOGU Dog” is a robot pet dog designed with creative green ideas. It can not only recycle kitchen waste but produce organic fertilizer for gardening.