Various industries, including aviation and bio-medical engineering, may benefit from a robot design contest to be held this weekend: the event could help to identify some of Hong Kong's most talented young engineers.
The Robocon 2004 Hong Kong contest will see 12 teams from four tertiary institutions competing. The winner will represent Hong Kong at the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union's Robocon competition in Seoul.
According to technical advisory committee chairman Ir Angus Cheung, the contest will help to raise public awareness and interest in engineering. 'Some people have the wrong perception that the engineering profession is tough, dirty and not so well paid, causing some bright young students not to choose engineering as their future career,' he said.
Mr Cheung believes the importance of engineering for Hong Kong's future has been inadequately stressed by the government. He also called for a better deployment of training resources to meet business and technology needs.
He said that developing suitable engineering courses to meet the requirements of fast-growing industries such as aviation and bio-medical engineering would help these industries to get the people they wanted, and improve the job prospects of graduates.
'Training resources can be better deployed for society as a whole, and Hong Kong can remain competitive in the forefront of technology development,' he said.
Participants in the contest are expected to build a robot capable of completing a specific task. This year, the robots have to build a bridge over which they can travel to deliver a gift.