Dr. Chi Tai Cheng Memorial Scholarship
To all FIRA Participants,
Dr. Chi-Tai Cheng was a very active and influential member of the FIRA community. He first participated with the team TKU from Tamkang University, Damshui, Taiwan, at FIRA 2003 in Vienna. He continued his studies and was an important member of Prof. Ching-Chang Wong’s research laboratory and team throughout this time. Dr. Cheng also visited several other laboratories during his studies and after he received his Ph.D. from Tamkang University. He continued his FIRA involvement after starting to work as an assistant professor at Tamkang University in 2013.
Dr. Cheng was not only an excellent robot designer and developer, but also the embodiment of many ideals of the FIRA community. He was always curious and willing to learn new things and he constantly tried to push the boundaries of our understanding of robotics, machine learning, artificial intelligence, and computer vision. He was working hard to build robots and systems that can help society at large. He made friends easily and was always willing to help others in his own or other teams. Students and professors alike respected him.
To our great regret, Dr. Chi-Tai Cheng passed away in 2015. Everyone in the FIRA community that had the privilege to know and work with Dr. Cheng are saddened by this loss.
To honor the memory of Dr. Chi-Tai Cheng, the FIRA Executive Committee has established the Dr. Chi-Tai Cheng Memorial Scholarship. The scholarship is aimed at students that best represent the attributes of being able to solve difficult technical problems, to follow their social conscience, to demonstrate leadership, to make friends, and to gain the respect of their peers.
The scholarship will award $500 USD travel support to the best male and female student each as described above. The selection will be done by the FIRA executive committee and the winner will be announced during the FIRA Robot World Cup. Therefore, only students that are participating at the FIRA Robot World Cup are eligible. The travel support can be used by the student at next year’s FIRA Robot World Cup competition.
