Online Gaming: A Two-Edged Sword. A newly developed Explosive Detection System Hot and Controversial Thai Universities Ranking.

This^Side^Up CyberAnt Magazine http://cpe.kmutt.ac.th/cyberant The Official Student Magazine of the Computer Engineering Department, KMUTT Volume 2, First Semester Edition July - October 2006 Online Gaming: A Two-Edged Sword A newly developed Explosive Detection System Hot and Controversial Thai Universities Ranking

Linguistic Evolution... (Reprinted from joke-of-the-day.com) The European Union commissioners have announced that agreement has been reached to adopt English as the preferred language for European communications, rather than German, which was the other possibility. As part of the negotiations, Her Majesty s Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a five-year phased plan for what will be known as EuroEnglish (Euro for short). In the first year, s will be used instead of the soft c. Sertainly, sivil servants will resieve this news with joy. Also, the hard c will be replaced with k. Not only will this klear up konfusion, but typewriters kan have one less letter. There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year, when the troublesome ph will be replaced by f. This will make words like fotograf 20 per sent shorter. In the third year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters, which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horible mes of silent e s in the languag is disgrasful, and they would go. By the fourth year, peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing th by z and W by V. During ze fifz year, ze unesesary o kan be dropd from vords kontaining ou, and similar changes vud of kors; be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters. After zis fifz yer, ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl. Zer vil b no mor trubls or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech ozer. Ze drem vil finali kum tru. Inbox Dear CyberAnt, I just want to let you know that I think you are doing an excellent job with CyberAnt. I read every issue, to find out what my students are thinking, get to know you all better, and find fresh recommendations for where to eat! Keep up the good work. Best wishes, Aj. Sally Hot and Controversial Thai Universities Ranking by Prathan Thananart (Pop) Looking in the scope of Thai educational news recently, we can safely say that few, if any, news are hotter and more controversial than the Office of Commission for Higher Education s (MUA--how they came to this acronym is still a mystery) decision to come in to play in national university ranking, which stirs both approval and disagreement everywhere. It seems that university-related government departments have been causing somewhat a ruckus lately. First, there is that troublesome Admission system that had been causing headache to parents, students and educational institutes alike. And now we have MUA to grade and rank nationwide universities, a job that was previously done by someone else namely the Office for National Education Standards and Quality Assessment (ONESQA a lengthy one indeed). According to MUA, their version of research is done more frequently and was, although they have no direct responsibility in this, committed in good faith. The result, however, does not deviate from public understanding by much. Chulalongkorn (CU), Khonkaen (KU), Chiang Mai (CMU) and Mahidol University (MU) placed first in the Outstanding group, with score over 75 out of 100, while King Mongkut s University of Technology Thonburi (KMUTT) was placed in the second-best, Excellent, along with Kasetsart (KU), Suranaree University of Technology (SUT) and Rajamangala University of Technology Krungthep (RMUTK), outperforming its brother institutes considerably. Thammasat University (TU), in distrust towards the ranking methods, submitted the information but requested that they do not be graded. MUA s advocates believed this ranking will help promote universities with good rank and also encourage active improvement among ones at the bottom end. The ranking, according to them, is already being done by international institutes from time to time anyway. Our own ranking will further help improve the world s understanding of Thai education standard. The Office of Commission for Higher Education stated that it plans to continue doing this annually. It is widely known that most private companies have their own ranking of universities among themselves. Students who graduate from different universities, even from the same field, can never expect to be treated with the same rank of salaries. The Office is concerned by this de facto standard that spreads wrong and outdated information about each university, thus its own ranking is commenced, said Mr Pawich Thongroj, secretary of the MUA. A considerably large portion of Thais, however, is strongly against this ranking process for its informality and unreliability. Their distrust is based on a reasonable fact that since most of the raw information used in grading comes from University-submitted figures, there is near-zero guarantee that universities will not fiddle with the data in order to get into higher rank than they ought to be. Worst than that, they believe, the result, no matter who comes out first, will only generate more resentment among universities which, after the recent murder of a student by other students from a hostile institute, could be the last thing we want. A recent ABAC Poll addressed the concerns of 1,152 students. 72.8% pointed out that it will be harder for students from low-ranking universities to get a decent job. 39.3% saw this ranking to be entirely unreliable for its lack of clarity and scope of information used. 37.3%, however, agreed that Thai academic system has a long way to go and much improvement could still be made to help most universities achieve a certain degree of standard in curriculums and personnel. Overall, this seems to be a good head start for a makeover on Thai educational system to standardize institutes and bring them to world level. Although far from perfect, it shows commitment and desire to improve, no less than we expect from a government agency. Next year s ranking will be worth looking forward to, indeed. The ranking can be viewed on-line at: http://www.ranking.mua.go.th

Whats_UP @KMUTT An Interview with CPE s Former Chair, Now KMUTT s VP by Pla (Junior) Pla: Sawadeeka, Ajarn ka! It s a great privilege to have a face-to-face interview with one of KMUTT s busiest and important persons. I have learned that you were just promoted from being the Faculty of Engineering s Asst. Dean to KMUTT s Vice President for Planning and Development at the same time Chief Information Officer. Aj. Bundit: Yes, that s true. What do you want to know? Pla: I have heard that our department will move to another place. Where is it? Aj.Bundit: At first, we are planning to construct an 11th floor on CB4 but it is not easy to add another floor. It will cost us around 37million. Which it is too much so, instead of adding another floor we better construct a new building. Have you seen the construction nearby the dormitory? It will be on that building. We will get two floors of that building. Pla: Have you planned anything for our department? Aj.Bundit: In which way? Pla: Em...whatever way that will happen? Aj.Bundit: Well, I think you already knew about new curriculum. For the first year we totally change our teaching style. We are going to adopt the PBL (Problem-Based Learning). In order to do the Problem-Base Learning we have to do so many things. For example, we will allow our students to have more time to study really deeper. That s why there was a need for us to reduce the number of credit hours in the new curriculum. What we are trying to do is create an engineer who is able to think and be more creative more than just follow the text book, or whatever that was done in the past. We might need to create more laboratories that can run 24 hours which we may have assistance on specific time but students should be able to use this lab anytime they want to. The lab will provide anything you need. This idea will help you, guys, to think and be more creative. We will let you spend more time to do whatever you want and have more freedom to think. For the whole university s international programs, we also planned to have foreigner teachers teach fundamental courses such as math, physics, etc. This will start next year. And we try to create more common area for the international programs. Pla: Is it possible in the future that all of the bilingual programs of other departments will change to international? Aj.Bundit: Possible. Or it can be the other way around. We may go bilingual but do more English than Thai. Also we ll try to do all documents in English. I think the new administration has new ideas to make the whole campus be more international, to look more green and clean, to be the place that you can learn anywhere anytime around the campus. So, it is the theme of the environment around the campus. Pla: I heard that freshmen of this year won t have to take basic electronics or signal and system? Aj.Bundit: We want our students to have more time in accordance with PBL system to allow students do their projects. We integrated all of the courses that look similar all together so we can do only one project. We combined basic electronics, signal and system and electric circuit analysis. These three are very similar. We also combined Data structure and programming. So, when you learn it you will treat it as the same thing. This will reduce credit hours. You didn t learn less. We just combined things together. We guarantee that you will learn all fundamental concepts in the first two years. And if you want to go deeper in specific areas you will learn them in 3rd year or 4th year. We will have three groups of classes: In the 1st group everybody has to learn, in the 2nd group someone has to learn and in the 3rd group only students who want to learn the specific area will learn. Pla: At this time, it sounds like our department focuses on the software part? Aj.Bundit: No, it doesn t. Put it this way. Instead of making every student learn everything in both hardware and software if students prefer to do more on the hardware they can take it later on. If they choose to do whatever part they want to gain expertise on, they don t need to know all the details of another part. They only need to learn the other part s fundamentals. But we really want our students to graduate from this department to be able to do the programming whether software or hardware part. We will try to put programming into every class because everything uses a program as a tool. In the past we used to teach everything that students needed to know but we never concentrated on what skills our graduates could perform. Pla: Lastly, what do you think about the university ranking? Aj.Bundit: It is nice to know our position but the most important thing is how far away of us to be a very good one. We should use this rank to let us know which parts we need to improve. Don t use this rank to show that we are number one but use this rank to improve ourselves. (Ajarn Bundit Thipakorn served at the Computer Engineering Department before he was promoted as Asst. Dean of the Faculty of Engineering and Deputy Director of KMUTT Library) Editorial Hi! And welcome to another fresh spring issue of CyberAnt, rounding up the talk of CPE this first semester. Sporting a fresh killer color look as usual, the theme this issue as the obvious, is Online Gaming, the new cutting edge way in entertainment, losing its players into a new kind of computer game imagination. This time it s not the computer that s thinking, but you re online with a thousand others communicating, playing, and obsessing, tuning each other s heartbeats to the same frequency. This new kind of entertainment is taking the players real life and turning it virtual. Players actually spend real money to make their virtual lives better than their own. So before you start connecting to another online game, don t forget to check out the Online Gaming: A Two Edged Sword article and get the facts right. Also in the issue is an article on the Hot and Controversial Thai Universities Ranking, the latest ranking that brings our KMUTT to the front-row of Thailand universities. Other up-to-date news on CPE inventions and competitions are inside, too. Enjoy! Staff Editor-in-Chief Thiti Iamwiwat (Por) Associate and Layout Editor Teeragit Nasaree Hare (Tee) Managing Editor Prathan Thananart (Pop) Feature Editor Vasin Ruengjittaveekul (Feb) News Editor Aueporn Pattaramaetakul (Pla) Photo Editor Jayson Nimitsilpa (Jay) Contributors Songpol Trangkanon (Kai) Chitsanuphong Thanutong (Fit) Sakharin Buachan (Tum) Patara Charernchitpaisan (Ta) Moderator Ms. Eunice M. Aclan For comments and suggestions please feel free to email us at cyberantmagazine@gmail.com CyberAnt reserves the right to whether your submitted article will be accommodated or not.

CoverStory by Por Online Gaming: A Two-Edged Sword Have you ever been to the computer lab and see most of the computers are unavailable? They are used by students playing games and you re thinking like, What s so fun about it? or Why are kids these days so addicted to it? In this issue, we would like to show how and why computer games have become students fifth basic element needed in life. MMORPGs (Massively-Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game), as defined today, have existed since the early 1990s. However, their history extends to the late 1970s, according to Wikipedia. MMORPG is an online computer role-playing game (RPG) in which a large number of players interact with one another in a virtual world. As in all RPGs, players assume the role of a fictional character (traditionally in a fantasy setting) and take control over many of that character s actions. Some computer games, you have to accept, are quite brain improving as they require problem solving skills. As far as I remember, when I was small, Tetris was the most famous brain improving game. Then 4-5 years later, Mario was invented. I think that everybody in our department knows this guy pretty well, an old chubby guy who likes collecting gold coins and saving the princess. As the time passes by, computer games are becoming more and more realistic in both picture and sound. Some computer games are developed to improve our brain but some are developed in a bad way (adding more violent stuff.) Thai students like to play computer games very much and the type that they like most is the online game. Normally, all you have to do is to install the game and sign up the registration form and you re done. Quite simple, isn t it? As most challenging MMORPGs are commercial, such as EverQuest and World of Warcraft, players must either purchase the client software for a one-time fee or pay a monthly subscription to play. Most major MMORPGs require players to do both. As of November 2005, the developers of World of Warcraft claimed it was the most subscribed single MMORPG in the world, with more than 4.5 million active subscriptions (cited at D-Lib Magazine online, December 2005). Now, why do online game players spend their money and time on this stuff? And why they are addicted on such games? John Kirriemuir, a researcher in the use of computer and video games, says that most MMORPGs feature a number of quests or challenges, which are based around a loose storyline to increase authenticity. Typical quests involve finding an item or killing a particular creature. Easier quests can be undertaken by individual players; rewards for successful completion are typically monetary, or an increase in overall player status to a higher level. More difficult quests often require several players to form a team (or clan ). The groups of players meet through using the in-game communication systems, and devise a strategy for how they will complete the challenge. Difficult challenges can lead to players being killed off e.g., by a much stronger opponent; when this happens, the avatar is regenerated, though the player has usually lost some items e.g., all of their in-game money. In order to maintain player interest in the game, MMORGP maintainers regularly introduce new features, such as special challenges or quests, or new areas of the environment to explore. Most new features merely provide an additional optional diversionary task for players. Others can cause significant changes to the game. For example, the maintainers of World of Warcraft introduced an illness, obtained by being splattered with infected blood when killing a particular creature. However, the illness (unintentionally) developed into a plague that crossed species barriers and struck down the avatars of many players. Age of Empires. Controlling a particular tribe in a colonial skirmish. CyberAnt Forum What Do You Think About Online Games? World of Warcraft. A group of players discuss a monster. I think it helps you to relax and it s quite fun to play. But you need to maintain your grades as good as they are or make them even better. Otherwise, don t play it. Junior Online game is bad for students. If someone is addicted to it, he will want to play it more and more everyday. Also, sometimes students will spend their money on the games as well. Parent I love playing online games. I think that it s the best way to relax. Sometimes if I can t do my homework, I will stop for a while to play computer games, and then go back to work. It helps me to refresh my brain. Senior

There is no doubt why online game can be addicting so easily. Players have to satisfy themselves in meeting the challenges continually updated by the game developers. Developers should introduce new challenges to keep their revenue flowing continuously, of course. The research of Child Development Conference, April 2003, shows the analysis of the players gender who are addicted. From this study result, there s no doubt, most of the students playing at the CPE labs are gentlemen. Here s what a few CPE students say how they got addicted on online gaming: Student_A: I have been playing computer games since I was 6 years old. I just couldn t stop playing since then because I like graphics and game stuff and I think it makes a great hobby. I usually spend 3-4 hours playing computer games daily. I even spend my real money for the virtual money monthly. And I can t stop it! Student_B: I started to play computer games when I was in Prathom 5. I borrowed some games from my friend and I like them a lot. I like every type of games such as sport puzzle, fighting, etc. Now I spend almost 3 hours a day to play computer games. I also spend my money to improve my characters in the online game. These are exactly quoted from a few students but most of my friends say the same things. As you can see from these students, there are actually some who have been playing computer games for a long time and are spending real money on a game. This could be one of the reasons students have lesser time to study. They re not able to use their time for quality activities. In effect, there s deterioration in the Thai students knowledge and skills. Playing computer games, indeed, is like a two-edged sword. The good thing about it is you can improve your problem solving skills and computer skills if you choose the right game to play. Playing the right choice of game will help you to be analytical. As a CPE student, it will even lead you to create your own games. It s the good edge of the sword (but it s still dangerous if you have no limits). So you must have control over managing your time wisely so it will really be beneficial to you. The downside of it, on the other hand, is more than its benefits if you don t know how to control yourself. Becoming more aggressive or even violent like how you attack your opponents online, affecting your academic performance due to lack of time to study, damaging your health particularly your eyes for too much radiation exposure and stress (and worse is, you forget eating on time) are just but a few of its bad effects. So, it s your choice to select which edge of the sword you want. I hope everyone in the CPE will choose well. You know you are addicted to computer games when: you are sitting in a boring class listening to a boring lecture and you want to push the sound off button. you name your 2 kids Mario and Luigi. your family leaves for few hours and you didn t even know they had left. you eat your breakfast, lunch, dinner in front of your monitor. when you ve spent thousands of dollars in virtual money, and your characters all live better lives and have better homes than you do..06 you ask a doctor how many lives you have left..07 you dream about games all the time..08 you try to type a code when you want to cheat on your exam. P.S. Congratulations to the assignment doer who often uses the computer because the Computer Lab took out all the installed games already!! I like computer games, but I don t play online game because I don t want to spend my money just to play a game. Money should be spent wisely. Freshman I don t play online game but I do play computer game. I play about 2-3 hours a day. I see too it that my playing won t affect my studies. Sophomore It is true that once you play online game, you will definitely want to play it more and more because I believe it s very addictive. But if you can manage your time well, it will no longer be your problem because it s a great way to have fun. Freshman I think playing computer game is a good way to relax. But if you spend too much time on it, it may affect you in a bad way. Junior Help your imagination to go further along with creating happiness; yet the time you use must be appropriate. You need to have some control and discipline once you play. Graduate student Star War Galaxies. A number of avatars dance ( grind ) away to maximize a particular status level.

vvote by Por If you can travel through time, what will you do? Kill the guy who invented Calculus 33.25 Try to join other department besides CPE 14.67 Study harder before taking the exam 42.13 Find someone else to be your girlfriend/boyfriend 9.95 What s your main reason to buy a textbook? To study, of course! 12.42 I want a pillow in the classroom. 34.52 It has nice pictures. 14.25 Don t know what else to spend on. 20.56 I don t know but my friend has one. 18.25 If you can select any kind of career, which will you take? Computer Engineer 25.75 Athlete 16.33 Musician 51.23 Prime minister 6.69 If you were born with a special gift, what would it be? Rich 32.32 Good looking 45.16 Smart 16.25 Lucky 6.27 What would you do if you knew that you will die tomorrow? Spend your whole day eating your most expensive dish. 5.26 Tell the one you like that you love her/him. 31.58 Spend the rest of your life in front of your computer. 10.53 Spend your last day with your boyfriend/girlfriend. 36.84 Spend your remaining time with your family. 15.79 A great place to hang out by Chitsanuphong Thanutong (Fit, Sophomore) After a day s class or overtime for project at the university, where do you want to dine and relax? The place where you can unwind while being served a great dinner is MoomProad. In this place, there s a variety of food and drinks including books. You can relax while dining by reading magazines, pocket books, comics and newspaper. Another good thing is that, if you re not able to finish what you ve started reading, you can borrow any books and magazines of your choice. Isn t it cool? At MoomProad, you can enjoy your meal with Thai noodles and various curry soups from the original mixture from the south of Thailand. This attractive place will make you appreciate the taste of food and healthy fresh fruit juice with natural honey or special coffee blended with rare anti-oxidation ingredients to make you fresh and stay fit amidst your busy student life. MoomProad is located near Lotus express in front of Baan Suan Thon on BudhaBucha road. It s open from 11:00-23:00 daily. (Contact 086-5588-067) A newly developed Explosive Detection System by Pla The Computer Engineering Department of KMUTT was able to develop a system to detect an explosive underneath moving vehicles. This system is better than the old one using camera or mirror to search for an explosive as it is unsafe for the searcher because the searcher needs to stay close to the inspected vehicle, time-consuming because it is manually used and not reliable because an explosive can be hidden where the old system can t detect. This new system will solve all of these problems. This detector can sense explosives through vapors. While the vehicle passes through the detector the fan will generate air passing underneath the vehicle and moves the explosive vapor to the detector on another side of the vehicle. The bumper is just optional for this system to create more explosive vapor. From this new invention, our department wishes it will give some influence to all students that everything is possible if you believe in yourself that you can make a difference.

Come and join us debate! by Patara Charernchitpaisan (Ta, 1st Year) If you happened to pass by the ISS Room in the late afternoon of Tuesday or Thursday and saw a student speaking in front of the room, you might have wondered what these students were doing. They re wrangling over some issues on a certain motion set prior to the debate. The Debating Club was formed for the first time in KMUTT by Miss Eunice as an advisor with about 16 members in the club. This club was formed to encourage the students to speak English more fluently and think more logically at a given time. For the first two weeks we have learned how to debate with Ms. Glee and Ms. Eunice as our trainers. We use the British Parliamentary Style which is the format used by most university students around the world. And then we try the real debate which is really interesting and here are some of the club members experiences. Eam : Good activity with new knowledge. I do really enjoy doing this activity with my friends. Debate is one of the best activities that trains me to speak more fluently and to organize my ideas and speak them out. Ning : Debate is fun and boring mixed up together but I think it is a very good activity. It helps me to practice to organize my ideas orderly and quickly and to speak more fluently. Bank : This activity has trained me to speak in front of many people with confidence, to think with reason that makes sense and to persuade people to believe what I say by giving some supporting details to my arguments. Anyone who has read The Legend of Three Kingdoms (Sam Kok) should join the debate. It s really fun. Those are just only some interesting experiences of three members. If you want to practice to speak English more fluently, organize your thinking clearly and logically, and develop your confidence to speak in front of people, you just only come to ISS room in the late afternoon every Tuesday and join this club. A change in Thailand telecommunication by J++ Effective September 1 until December 1, 2006, all mobile telephone numbers in Thailand must be changed from 9 digits to 10 digits by adding 8 after the first digit number which is 0 as set by the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC). The change does not include landline phones and 3 and 4 hotline digits, for example, 191, 199, 1900, 001, 007, 008, 009, 108, etc. But why should there be a change like this? At present, Thailand has 55 million mobile users and there are about 33-35 million mobile numbers. It is time to change and it is expected that in the next 30 years the number may even double or more than that. How can we change our old number? It s so easy. For example, if you want to change mobile number 01-234-5678 to 10 digits, just change first 0 to 08 and the new number is 081-234-5678. But if you have many numbers in your phone book or in telephone s memory card it won t be easy. If you have more than 50 numbers in your mobile phone you have to change it one by one so that by December 1, you can still contact all these numbers. The telephone companies realized this problem and created a program for smartphones to change it automatically. This program can change only numbers in your telephone memory but not the numbers saved in your SIM card. If you want to change your SIM card numbers, you should go to the telephone shops and they will do the necessary changes for you.

Sit Down, Speak Up! by Kaiii...(Senior) Why did you join the Debating Club? What s the most embarrassing or unforgettable experience you have in the club? What/Who do you like most in the club? Why? What possible topic/s or motion you want to debate in the future? What benefit/s have you got from joining the Debating Club? I joined this club because I love learning and trying new things... Debate is an interesting and challenging activity I had dreamed to try... and now I have the chance.so why not grab the chance to join the club?? What do you think? lol... Well... first time of my debating... I was very excited... I couldn t remember what I had to say... I was not able to order my speech... lol... I gave my arguments before I rebutted the speech of my opponent... which is not right for debating... hahahaha!!!!!!! N Ta, a 1st year student. He s a cute boy... lol... and I like the way he debates... sounds so natural. Chicken came first before the egg. Sound cool?? We never know what s the truth, right? So it will be fun to debate about this. Hahaha... First I m so happy that I m going to get a certificate for joining this club. Thanks Ms.Eunice... lol... and I also have learned how to be a good speaker, be confident, and make a quick decision... and working as a team helped me improve my personality a lot... Loads of thanks again to the Debating Club... CHEERS!!!!! Nong (Senior) Because I wanted to. Do I need any more reason? Once I was an opposition leader debating the figurative motion and I found out that I had nothing to speak. Tasty pizzas! I m sure you know why. This house believes that existence is nonsense. (Do you think it s debatable? Tell me, Madam Chair Adjudicator.) We don t have many chances to improve our English speaking skills, do we? So why don t we grab the chance? Sounds like fun. Nothing in particular. Dinner. Political stuff (j/k, of course) Dramatically improved speaking skill. Debating is the way I can practice speaking English especially speaking in public and the important thing is It s free! ^_^ Once I raised a POI (Point of Information)then my opponent said I don t understand you [ - - ]. Whaaaa!!! POI (Point of information). Trying to lambast your opponents arguments or corner them when they re presenting their speech is very challenging. This house should ban The Debating Club. (Hahaha...) I ve got many things from this club: improved my speaking skills especially in public, listening skills, reasoning/thinking logically, taking notes, comprehension, good attitudes, collaborating in team, got more friends, free dinner (Oops,what have I said!), etc. Pla (Senior) Kind of interesting and sounds fun. And I want to practice and improve my English. I don t have any or I might have forgotten about it already <o^_^o>. Pop. He s the Best Speaker. I like the way he talks. He can think of and organize his reasons really well and he supports his ideas with lots of facts and details. He also speaks clearly. This house believes that living in the world in the past is better than living at present. I have improved my speaking skills and learned how to be a good speaker/debater. And I think this club sharpens up my brain especially in critically thinking of sensible ideas and organizing them logically. Eam (Freshie) Eve (Freshie) Pop (Freshie) Most-Awaited CPE Robot Competition by Vasin Ruengjittaveekul (Feb, 1st Year) The atmosphere in Bell Lab was very lively a couple days before the competition lead by Aj. Surapont Toomnark. Students dropped by to try out their robot on the battleground (in Bell Lab). Each competing team tried to program the robot with a well-thought strategy. Some teams focused on speed. Others prioritized on precision and accuracy. Some teams even emphasized on the virtual appearance of their robots. After the establishment of CPE Basic Embedded Systems Learning Laboratory (or Bell Lab), many robotics activities and techniques are introduced. This year, the first year students are encouraged to create a line-tracking robot using BS2-SX microcontroller board. This type of robot is programmed to follow white line on a totally black floor through the use of various sensors. However, there are some restrictions for this year s tournament. For example, competitors are not allowed to control the robot manually, use more than two motors, and install more than two IR sensors. This is to ensure that it will be a clean and fair competition. On the day of the elimination round (1st Round) last September 19, 2006, CPE students were very excited and were eager to see the result. The competition was held in the department. The competitors spent most of their time debugging and fixing their robots. Some students even worked on their robots till morning. When the tournament began, students and some professors gathered around the battleground and cheered for the robots. When the elimination round was over, some students decided to depart while many remained in the department and talked about the competition. The atmosphere during the aftermath of the elimination round is still serious. Competitors whose robot surpassed this round refused to review their techniques and strategies in which they used for their robot. Perhaps they might tell us after the competition is over. So watch out for their secrets next issue. We ll tell you as well who are the winners in the championship round which is the combination of students from sections A, B, C and D.