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Published on July 7, 2007

Even with equipment and material salvaged from used electronics parts, three Thai teams are through to the RoboCup 2007 Atlanta competition in the United States.

Songkiat Kingkaew, leader of team Ideal, which is now leading in the RoboCup Rescue League, said the robot his team had made consisted mostly of used motors and circuit boards bought from spare-part shops in Bangkok's Klong Thom area.

"Let's say 95 per cent of our robot is made in Thailand. We even assembled its rubber caterpillar tracks ourselves," said Songkiat, whose team won Thailand Rescue Robot 2006.

Ideal, which represents King Mongkut University of Technology North Bangkok (KMUTNB), now leads the league with 1,025 points. It is trailed by two Thai teams, Independent and CEO Mission Ii, representing KMUTNB and the University of the Thai Chamber of Commerce, with 717 points and 642 points respectively.

The three teams are in with a good chance to win the league when the competition climaxes on Tuesday.

CEO Mission Ii climbed to third place by beating a German team on Thursday. The remaining teams in the league are from Japan, Iran, Sweden and Australia.

Independent won the league in RoboCup 2006 in Bremen, Germany. This year's event is at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, from July 1-10.

In the Rescue League, robots explore a specially constructed disaster site about the size of a small house containing dummies displaying various signs of life, such as waving hands, shouts and heat, hidden amongst stairs, floors and rubble.

Theerasil Thupwiphat, a KMUTNB lecturer who supervises its two teams, said Ideal was likely to win the title after the remaining three rounds as its robot had showed it could find all six dummies, while the foreign teams had found only five.

Youngworking with scrap

Preecha Sa-ardsorn

The Nation