Next-Generation Robotics Brings Creativity to China Campus

For years, China has been a recognized leader in the manufacturing sector. More recently, China began to rise as a force to be reckoned with in education as well. It produces record numbers of engineering graduates every year. Rather than being complacent under this competitive advantage of winning by quantity, the Chinese government has taken steps to ensure that it can also lead by quality. As a result, educators around the country actively seek opportunities to develop a whole new generation of self-driven students. These students are determined not only to learn from others, but also to create for others. The urge to transfer ownership of knowledge from those who teach to those who learn is rewriting how China's system has been for centuries. Today--in this typically conservative and reserved culture-- passion and creativity are seen as critical attributes.

The traditional Chinese education system is lecture-based. The process of learning relies heavily on the part of the educators since the elementary years. From daily preparation of course materials and homework assignments to research approaches and methodology, those who teach remain the central figures in the knowledge-building process well into college. However, the speed of technology advancement will soon render this lecture-based approach to learning obsolete. Being one of the best schools in China, Tsinghua University is striving to develop passion and creativity among its students via the academic curriculum. Professors welcome the opportunities to work with companies--not only for the necessary resources, but also for the chance to expose their students to the culture and different approaches that an outside firm can offer.

As part of Intel Corporation's university program in China, Tsinghua University is progressively moving toward its mission. This summer, the university's Department of Computer Science completed its first session of the select program on Robotics with the support of Intel. According to Tsinghua professors, Zhao Yannan and Yang Shiqiang, Intel's support in technology and funding has made it possible for them to revamp the approach to the curriculum to accommodate the university's goals. Specifically, by adopting the theme of soccer and making learning a game, the program succeeded in attracting students and retaining their enthusiasm. At the same time, it allowed the university to accomplish four goals. First, the program was able to motivate proactive learning that led to self-driven research work and high-level student involvement. Second, from the research of human intelligence and judgment, students developed subjective and objective assessments on the contents and process of the research itself. The program also promoted teamwork, as very little of it could be done alone. Lastly, because of soccer's popularity in China, the program induced the kind of passion and creativity on the subject matter that Tsinghua wants to impart on its students.

According to Professor Zhao, the current robotics program at Tsinghua from the scientific-discovery point of view is targeted at the international robotics soccer competition that takes place once a year. To do this, Tsinghua divides its robotics curriculum into three parts. It focuses not only on its students' knowledge building, but also on preparing for and excelling at the international challenge. To address the fundamental understanding of the technology with its 70 students, the program first examines the basic functions that are necessary in a single robotic player. By understanding the technological complexity involved in human-like assessment, judgment, dribbling, sensing, and reacting to threats, students are able to use the robotics program as a platform to advance to more complex research. After the fundamentals, the program moves into preparing for the international game by first winning at the domestic level. Technologically, this includes soccer play between two players--from passing to tackling. Every move represents a potential technical breakthrough. The final stage of the program is the forming of an entire robotic soccer team where players are able to supplement and complement each other's tactics to carry out a game against an opposing robotic team.

Professor Zhao finds Intel's university program to be complementary to what Tsinghua is able to offer. Without the burden of expected investment returns, the academic circle tends to take a more naive view when it comes to technological possibilities. However, the necessity for financial support by the enterprises is an absolute reality. According to Professor Zhao, the success of Tsinghua's first robotics coursework can be largely contributed to Intel. Intel's support in technology and funding enabled Professor Zhao and her colleagues to focus on the program's curricular contents and delivery. As such, the robotics program at Tshinghua heavily employs embedded Intel Architecture (IA). Professor Zhao, who has worked with various Intel and other architectures over the years, firmly believes that robotics' requirements for low-power-consumption, small-form-factor, and high-performance CPUs makes the program an excellent showcase to completely demonstrate the core strengths of embedded IA.

To embedded developers and engineers, the Tsinghua professors agree that their work at the university highlights opportunities as well as challenges in both hardware and software. In hardware, the professors believe that the opportunity resides with the further improvement on compatibility, reliability, manageability, and availability of external adaptors. In software, the ongoing refinement of the kernel is the low-hanging fruit to quickly improve efficiency in processing performance. According to the professors, the challenges will be in striking a balance between better performance and lower price (i.e., keeping the products affordable to the Chinese audience while continuing to improve on power consumption, stability, security, and applicability).

According to Tsinghua, the joint effort with Intel this summer on the development of robotic soccer players is part of China's academic model program. That program's research results are expected to be utilized to meet the needs of the society. Under China's 11th Five-Year Plan1, Tsinghua's robotics program is moving toward solutions for the aging Chinese population. Its discoveries will possibly be productized into items like robotic wheelchairs and hospital beds. To the Tsinghua researchers, however, the biggest thrill of their work is the prospect of achieving the shared international goal of robotic soccer teams winning against their human opponents. To this, Professor Zhao also warns of the potential undesirable effects of a society where robots dominate.

1 Began in 1953, the Five-Year Plans provide guidelines for China's economic and social developments. They aim mainly at key construction projects, the distribution of productive forces, and contributions by individual sectors. Except for a period of economic adjustment from 1963 to 1965, a total of 10 five-year plans have been implemented to date. The 11th plan provides guidelines for the years 2006 to 2010.