Korea University of Technology and Education
Located in Cheonan, South Chungcheong, South Korea, is a government-supported university that focuses on teaching practical engineering and HRD: the Korea University of Technology and Education, popularly known as Korea Tech.
Highly regarded for having a 100% graduate career placement for 13 straight years, Korea Tech takes pride in their practical engineering program, which made them the number one university in the country. The university was founded back in 1991 through the funding of the Ministry of Labor, primarily to foster vocational school educators.
From there, the school continued to expand and included Human Resource Development (HRD) to its program, which gives students the opportunity to qualify in practical proficiency and teaching abilities.
Relatively new, the university continued to flourish. Seven years after it was founded, Korea Tech, with help from its government, established the Human Resources Development Institute (HRDI), an auxiliary institute created to re-tool vocational school educators and field engineers. Here 11,000 students and participants train in 1 week to 6 months programs in new technology and teaching techniques.
In 2004, the university established the Korea Tech-Samsung Advanced Electronics Technology Center in order to develop cooperation and to bridge the technological gap between major and small-and-medium sized businesses. Currently, the university offers the following Engineering courses: Mechanical Engineering, Mechatronics Engineering, Electric, Electronics & Communication Engineering, Computer Engineering, Industrial Design Engineering, Energy Materials Chemical Engineering, and Architectural Engineering. Korea Tech also offers Industrial Management, Management of Technology and the Human Resources Development.
In order to maintain its stature, out of the 9,600 applicants last year, only 1,110 made it to the program. Only those who belong in the top 14% of the country’s SAT scores were admitted to the school.
To keep up with today’s technology, especially in the field of robotics, the School of Mechanical Engineering at the Korea University of Technology and Education established The KUT BioRobotics Laboratory, which focuses its research on the interface between humans and robots.
It is also this lab’s mission to create and develop science, technology, and human resources. Recently, the Laboratory focused on the human-robot haptic interface, a mechatronic system that lets people feel and physically control virtual or remote environments.
Among the notable robots that KUT BioRobotics have developed are CREABO 1, CREABO 2, CREABO 3 and the ARES robot. The University hopes that through their space robotics and teleoperation, medical, mobile, vehicular, industrial and biologically-inspired robots, they can one day develop the world’s most sophisticated machine that can interact with people.
