KAIST students win top prize at USIT innovation contest

A technology was developed in Korea that enables a stick mop self-recognize locations and directions to indicate places that are not cleaned.

The Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology said Tuesday that its students developed a smart mop and won first prize at the 27th User Interface Software and Technology Student Innovation Contest. The event was hosted by the Association for Computer Machinery and held in Hawaii from Oct. 4 to Oct. 8.

The mob was created by the "Day Dream" team composed of Cha Se-jin and Kim Han-jong who are in master`s course at the school`s Department of Industrial Design and Kim Sun-joon in doctoral course at the Department of Computer Science.

The product used "Kinoma Create," an Internet of Things device that connects various sensors and devices, allowing recognition of the current location and direction in a given space. A display is installed on the top of the mop so that a user can see areas that are not cleaned well. The mop turns cleaning into a game as virtual target are set up on the floor and score is given when the mop wipes the target.

Nam Taek-jin, professor of industrial design who guided his students to the contest, said, "By getting good results after competing with global universities, we were able to make known the excellence of our school`s education and research capabilities."

ACM UIST is a world-renowned international academic society in human-computer interface, and this year`s contest was joined by 24 major global universities including Carnegie Mellon and Georgia Tech.