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This July, with the supervision of Dr. Wang Wen-june, Professor of Department of Electrical Engineering, master students Lin Kuan-chih, Chang Jun-wei, Cho Hao-gong, and Huang Kuan-yin participated in “the 16th Macronix Golden Silicon Awards: Semiconductor Design and Application Contest.” With “a Novel Technique of Optical Touch Screen,” they won the golden award and best innovation award in the application group and became the biggest winner of the contest this year!

In Sci-Fi films, actors and actresses often use high-tech products to display three-dimensional figures; they click, slide, and zoom in and out in the air with their hands in order to better operate and observe certain objects. The work of Lin Kuan-chih’s team is exactly the prototype of such future technology. The device is light-weighted, easy to set up, cheap, and can be widely applied. The team chose some devices that people can easily get in daily life, developing a low-cost but high-tech technique.

Lin’s team set up a webcam and a laser marker, integrating the image processing and the computer vision techniques to achieve the touch screen function. From a notebook to an LED television and even a projection screen, the touch screen function can be realized once such a technique of optical touch screen is installed.

“Before joining the contest, I really doubted my capability and my work,” said Lin Kuan-chih. Lin had thought that students from other universities performed much better and they were often victorious in other contests, and he was also worried that his work was comparatively simple and primitive. Still, his supervisor Dr. Wang Wen-june gave encouragement and instructed the team attentively. After receiving the award, Lin confirmed that the research resource and energy of the Department of Electrical Engineering are quite abundant and strong. “I would encourage my younger school mates to break the frame and bravely pursue their goals!” said Lin.