Based on a photo and the push of a button,
one can recycle abandoned bicycles? The
results of the 2019 Taiwan National Science Fair is in! The team of Felix Tsai, 8th grader at Taipei
Fushing Private Middle School, and Frances Hsu, 9th grader at Taipei American
School, has won the First Place Honors in the Middle School Life and Applied
Science section in the National Science Fair with their “Abandoned Bicycles –
Rebirth ! Artificial Intelligence Application and Research” project. The team has used AI software, linking
Facebook or Messenger to their AI assessment system, vastly improved the
reporting and processing of abandoned bicycles.
Using the interactive function of their Facebook chatbot “ReportBot”,
and through their AI algorithm, an abandoned bicycle can be reported for
processing within 3 minutes!
Frances Hsu (Left) & Felix Tsai (right)
ReportBot is a cloud-based virtual AI
robot. Through scanning of QR code, one
can easily interact with ReportBot, follow the instructions given by ReportBot
to report an abandoned bicycle. After
taking a photo of the abandoned bicycle, the AI ReportBot will zero-in on where
the bicycle is located, will assess the condition of the bicycles using AI
algorithm, and if deem abandoned, will send the message to the appropriate city
rubbish collection agency for further actions and recycling. The benefits of this project is significant :
since the app went online in May 2019, in only two months there has been over
100 bicycles recycled!
Felix Tsai (Left) & Frances Hsu (right)
The two team members behind this project,
Felix Tsai and Frances Hsu, have been interested in robotics since they were in
elementary school, and both have earned numerous awards in the field of
robotics. Felix is a multi-time first
place winner of the Taipei City Innovation Robotics Competition. Felix is very excited that through this
project, he can upgrade a public welfare project he spearheaded three years ago
into an AI based abandoned bicycle reporting system, giving more people the
ease and opportunity to report abandoned bicycles. Frances had won the world champion in the
Nagoya RoboCup Junior competition in the RoboDance section. Frances is multi-lingual, and she will use
her language abilities in Spanish and Japanese in addition to Chinese and
English to make this RoboBot project a multi-language platform, giving more
people the opportunity to participate in the abandoned bicycles public welfare
program.
“Abandoned Bicycles – Rebirth ! Artificial
Intelligence Application and Research” has gotten many good praises from the
competition judges. The judges were
especially impressed by the successful combination and application of a new AI
technology in real everyday life, with a solid public welfare usage. This project has its app is already online,
with an English version available and Spanish and Japanese version to follow
soon. Please join us in the recycling of
abandoned bicycles to make our cities more beautiful! Just scan the QR code now, and let ReportBot
help you to become one of the guardians of our environment!
