For the first time ever, ITE emerged the World Champion at the 2008 APEC Micromouse Competition, held in Austin, Texas, USA, after edging out 19 strong contenders from the USA, Korea, Japan, India and Singapore, some of whom were veteran competitors.

Record Number of Entries
The 22nd in its series, the annual APEC Micromouse Competition was held on 25 February 2008, in conjunction with the international Applied Power Electronics
Conference (APEC). This year’s APEC Micromouse Competition boasted a record number of entries. A total of 20 mice were entered for the “battle”. This comprised an entry from India, two entries each from the USA, Japan and Korea, and 13 from Singapore, of which ITE and Nanyang Polytechnic pitted four and nine mice, respectively.

Sweet Success
Khiew Tzong Yong, the creator of Excel-5, ITE’s winning mouse that crossed the finishing line at an impressive 10.4 seconds, has participated in numerous micromouse competitions. The Higher Nitec in Electronics Engineering graduate and current Technical Support Officer at ITE helped coach student enthusiasts from ITE College West as well. “Nanyang Polytechnic is an incredibly strong team, and we’ve always regarded them as our benchmark. And of course, we’ve never dreamt of surpassing Korea because they have always topped the international micromouse competitions. But we did!” said a delighted Tzong Yong. Another competitor, Sathiyasilan s/o Rasandrean, a second-year Higher Nitec in Electronics Engineering student from ITE College West, also received the Best Student Award for
clocking in 11.64 seconds, with his micromouse, Ladybug.