I am Michihiro Hayashi, a faculty advisor for the KOSEN Robocon (KOSEN Robot Contest) team. The National Competition of the KOSEN Robocon was held on Sunday, November 16th, 2025, at Ryogoku Kokugikan. Team A of ICT, mainly composed of students from Kanazawa Campus, participated in the event. This was ICT’s first appearance at the national competition in three years, since 2022.

KOSEN Robocon features a different theme every year, requiring teams to design and build new robots from scratch between the theme announcement in mid-April and the regional competition in early October. This year’s theme was “Great High Gate,” where robots had to stack cardboard boxes to create a gate and pull a cart carrying a team member through it. The higher the gate, the higher the score. At the Tokai-Hokuriku regional competition, ICT’s team “Koubako Club” won the Technical Award and advanced to the national competition via the judges’ recommendation.

For more information about the regional competition, please see the article [NHK KOSEN Robocon 2025, Tokai-Hokuriku Regional Competition].

After the regional competition, we worked on improving the robot for the nationals. First, we increased its travel speed by replacing gears and sprockets in the drive mechanism, achieving about 1.7 times faster movement. We also upgraded the claw mechanism for gripping boxes and fine-tuned the control program, doubling its speed. However, the faster movement made operation more challenging, and the student in charge of driving the robot struggled at first. To overcome this, we practiced not only on the Kanazawa campus but also at YUMEKOBO — a makerspace for students to freely create and experiment— simulating real match conditions until the operator became more comfortable with the controls.

At Ryogoku Kokugikan, the venue for the national competition, robots had to be transported between inspection areas, test runs, and waiting zones without elevators, requiring significant manpower. We asked two 5th year students who participated last year to help. Thanks to their willingness, we were able to attend the national competition as a six-member team.

In the tournament, we faced Hiroshima KOSEN’s “Itsukushima” in the first round and won 290–10. In the second round, we lost to Akashi KOSEN’s “Stackmate” 250–375. The Akashi team advanced further but was defeated by the eventual champion from Asahikawa KOSEN in the semifinals.

Roles at the national competition differed slightly from the regional event, so we asked each member for their thoughts.

Comments from Team A Members:

[Haruki Ota]
　

As the team leader and the operator, I found controlling the faster robot challenging. In the first match, I made a slight mistake with left and right, but overall, I managed to control the robot without any major errors.

 

 

[Haruto Shiraishi]
I was responsible for situational judgment and giving movement instructions. Using my experience as the operator in the regional tournament, I could make accurate decisions and guide the robot effectively.

 

 

 

[Imaru Oishi]
　

I continued riding the cart at nationals. My costume was upgraded with an original apron, giving me a market vendor look. I was happy to show off smooth movements without spinning around like some other team’s robots.

 

 

[Shiyu Sano]
Known as “Prayer Shiyu” from the regional broadcast ending scene, I handled robot maintenance in the pit. With almost no opportunity for test runs at nationals, every adjustment and check required intense focus.

 

 

 

[Ryuto Hashiya]
I assisted in transporting robots and tools inside the venue. My experience from last year’s regional competition was helpful. Sharing meals with teammates in Ryogoku was also a great memory.

[Sansar Sergelen]
I helped in the pit and set up gates during the preparation time. Thanks to my height, I could place the topmost box on the gate. The yakitori in Ryogoku was delicious!

We plan to continue participating in KOSEN Robocon in the coming years. I hope that seeing the seniors’ efforts will inspire younger students to join.

 

I am Michihiro Hayashi, and I serve as a faculty advisor for the KOSEN Robocon (KOSEN Robot Contest) teams.

The Tokai-Hokuriku Regional Competition of the KOSEN Robocon is an annual event in which our students regularly participate, was held on Sunday, October 5th, 2025. This year, we joined the competition with a total of 12 students: four students from Kanazawa Campus as Team A, and eight students from Hakusanroku Campus as Team B.

Each year, the contest features a different theme, requiring teams to design and build entirely new robots between the theme announcement in mid-April and the regional competition in early October. The 2025 theme was “Great High Gate.” Robots were tasked with stacking cardboard boxes to form a gate, through which a cart carrying a team member would be pulled by the robot. The higher the gate, the more points awarded.

Let me introduce the teams and their robots.

Team A: Koubako Club (Kanazawa Campus)

Team A consists of four 4th year students. Their robot was inspired by the local delicacy Koubako-gani (female snow crab), and its role was to transport a pre-assembled gate of stacked boxes to a designated location. We interviewed team leader Haruki Ohta, operator Haruto Shiraishi, cart rider Imaru Oishi, and pit mechanic Shiyu Sano.

Comments from Team A Members:

[Haruki Ohta]
I returned home during summer break to obtain my driver’s license, and I regret not being able to contribute much to the robot’s construction during that time. However, after obtaining my license, I was able to dedicate more time in the second semester and feel I contributed to the team’s success.

 

 

[Haruto Shiraishi]
I was nervous during the match, and my robot operation was a bit shaky at times. Still, we achieved our target score in the first match and won. We’ve been recommended for the national competition, so I’ll continue to give it my all.

 

 

[Imaru Oishi]
I dressed as a seafood shop clerk handling Koubako-gani while riding the cart. Although I’m not skilled in robot design or assembly, my light weight and slender build helped the robot pull the cart and pass through the gate smoothly. I was the one waving to the audience during the exhibition.

 

 

[Shiyu Sano]
I oversaw manufacturing and assembling robot parts. The robot performed smoothly without any malfunctions or damage during the competition. After the matches, I was so exhausted that I fell asleep in the pit area—and was caught on NHK’s camera! I wonder if that footage will be broadcast.

 

 

 

Although Team A was eliminated in the preliminary league with one win and one loss, their robot’s gate transportation function was highly praised, earning them the Technical Award and a spot in the national competition. We hope they continue to excel at the national level.

 

Team B: Hakobou (Hakusanroku Campus)

Team B consists of 1st and 2nd year students. Their robot mimicked the mechanism of a container crane used in port cargo operations. Decorated with black-and-yellow hazard stripes and a red rotating beacon, it embodied the look of a working vehicle. The robot lifted and stacked boxes using a hand that opens and closes like a crane and an extendable arm.
Although eight members participated in the regional competition as per the rules, a total of 11 students were involved in robot development and practice. Even those not selected as players played vital behind-the-scenes roles. We interviewed team leader and operator Kaishu Ishiharada, and support member Akira Terashima.

Comments from Team B Members:

[Kaishu Ishiharada]
This year, we reflected on past experiences and maintained a positive team atmosphere. As a result, we completed the robot earlier than usual and had ample time for practice. I was less nervous during the matches, which I believe contributed to our strong performance (Top 4). I hope to continue working hard with my teammates next year.

 

 

[Akira Terashima]
Although I joined the regional competition as part of the cheering squad, which was a bit disappointing, I had the opportunity to observe many robots from other schools. It was a valuable experience, and I hope to apply what I learned in future competitions.

 

 

 

Team B advanced through the preliminary league undefeated and reached the final tournament. They continued to win until the semifinals, where they narrowly lost to the eventual champion, finishing in the Top 4. Their robot performed consistently and reliably in all matches. Despite the pressure, Team B operated the robot flawlessly, a testament to their thorough preparation.

 

This year, both teams succeeded in getting their robots operational early, allowing for repeated match-style practice. Problems identified during practice were addressed through design improvements and strategic adjustments. These approaches closely align with engineering design principles and could be effectively applied in classroom settings as well.

 

[About KOSEN Robocon]
KOSEN Robocon began in 1988. It is a nationwide educational event designed to inspire young people to think independently and experience the joy of building robots with their own hands. Each year, students from colleges of technology across Japan tackle a new challenge, using their creativity and ingenuity to design and build robots that compete in various tasks. Celebrating its 38th edition in 2025, the contest continues to emphasize the importance of original ideas and the excitement of engineering.

[NHK ROBOCON Tokai-Hokuriku Regional Competition]
TV station: NHK General TV
Date & Time: Saturday, November 8, 2025, at 10:40 AM
Note: It is also available on NHK ONE.
https://www.web.nhk/tv/an/robocon/pl/series-tep-J8Y25YN2QG/ep/8ZV3KYQ55G

I’m Rattiya Mebusaya—or just call me Jane—and I’m from Thailand. The classes, Tossa Mebusaya and I are responsible for are mostly related to innovation and entrepreneurship in both Kanazawa and Hakusanroku campus. On June 8th, it was the anniversary of our being here and working for 3 years. I’m kind of a new full-time employee at ICT, but I’m not new here. I graduated from KIT studying in Nakazawa Sensei’s lab and had been temporarily working at ICT’s Kanazawa office—helping out here and there—for two and a half years. Now, I’m mostly at the Kanazawa campus but work at the Hakusanroku campus from time to time.

 

Tossa and I have a mission here to build an entrepreneurship program for students. In these past three years, it has been good, bad, exciting, and many other things in between. It has been a great experience and full of opportunities. We have done so many things so far—some have paid off, and some still need time and adjustment. With the startup and entrepreneur mindset, everything is an opportunity, and every failure is a lesson. We just need to move forward and act fast.

We’re really proud of our students in the startup and entrepreneur program. There will be more opportunities and learning throughout this long journey. We have not only taught students in classes—since entrepreneurship and a startup mindset need consistency and real-world, uncertain experiences—we also need to be part of a strong ecosystem to create a successful learning environment.

Even though we have not yet completely fulfilled all our goals, these are the activities we’ve built up so far at both the Kanazawa and Hakusanroku campuses. Here are some pictures of what we’ve done so far at ICT—our first and second KIT & ICT Startup Boot Camps. These boot camps were created to educate and support anyone interested in startups—not just ICT students, but also KIT students and even faculty and staff. We've been running them for about two years. This year, we will move to the next stage of startup development.

Startup Boot Camp

Next are our first and second ICT Startup Competitions. In these events, we’ve hosted a couple of interesting panels to educate and update participants on both Japanese and global startup trends. We’ve invited Japanese and international startups, investors, and other key ecosystem players such as Tech Startup HOKURIKU(TeSH), government representatives, and more. After the panels, we held a pitching competition. We’ve recruited teams from ICT, KIT (although no one from KIT has joined yet), and universities in other countries such as Thailand, Vietnam, and Malaysia. We hope that in the coming year, we’ll have more international teams as well as local teams from other universities, colleges, and technical colleges or KOSENs.

ICT Startup Competition 2024

 

ICT Startup Competition 2025

 

We’ve also built connections with entrepreneurs and others in the ecosystem through important events such as the Matching HUB Hokuriku, SusHi Tech Tokyo, and visits to universities in other countries. Lastly, we have been coaching our students for competitions such as the Entrepreneurship KOSEN Summit and the High School Students’ Dream Award.

Entrepreneurship KOSEN Summit

Other Entrepreneurship Events

 

Right now, our office is based at the ICT Kanazawa campus. If anyone is interested in Innovation, Startups, or Entrepreneurship, please feel free to swing by and see us at the Innovation Lab—we’d love for you to get to know us. Or, if you’d like to learn more about us first, you can also visit our Facebook page to see more details and activities。
https://www.facebook.com/share/g/1Gi66wGeQo/

In the future, we plan to host events that anyone can join to learn more about current entrepreneurs or share ideas—even short, casual pitches on solving real-world problems. It will be fun to share ideas without boundaries.

Play time at ICT Kanazawa after a hard day’s work. There are always opportunities for creativity and excitement.

 

Rattiya Mebusaya

 

 

This is Michihiro Hayashi, Engineering Design teacher at Kanazawa campus. Today, I would like to share my experience attending SID Display Week 2025, an international conference held in San Jose, CA, USA, from Monday, May 12th to Saturday, May 17th, 2025.　

 

Our school contributed two presentations to the conference, titled “Hyper-Realistic SDR/LDR Image Reproduction Proposal Needing Just Approx. 1/30th Exposure of Conventional SDR Image and Global-Tone Mapping, or 1D-LUT, in UHDR Environments Regardless of Time of Day” and “Research on Individual Differences in Ability to Recognize Obstacles Employing Binocular Stereopsis and Development of Stereoscopic Test Video Sequences for Analyses”

Both of our presentations were presented using the poster session format.
For more detailed information on each presentation, please refer to the following.
https://researchmap.jp/Sakuichi_Ohtsuka/published_papers/50160420
https://researchmap.jp/Sakuichi_Ohtsuka/published_papers/50160352

The first presentation, given by Prof. Sakuichi Ohtsuka, was about an image processing technique that makes photos taken with digital cameras appear more natural. The culmination of the research was a series of beautiful photographs produced with this image process technique. These images, printed on large-format paper, looked remarkably natural and attracted a great deal of attention from attendees. The second presentation, given by 5th year student, Ema Miwa, demonstrated a video for evaluating binocular stereoscopic vision. She brought playback equipment to the venue so that attendees could actually view the video, and prepared printed materials with a pair of images for stereoscopic viewing as part of her presentation. This presentation also led to active discussions with attendees in front of the poster.

Since the venue was the San Jose Convention Center in California, I traveled from Kanazawa with Ema and Prof. Justin Han, taking connecting flights from Komatsu to Haneda, then to Honolulu, and finally to San Jose. With multiple flight connections, we had to go through several security checks, immigration procedures, and customs inspections, making the journey quite hectic. It was my first time in Hawaii since my honeymoon, but due to the transfer procedures, I had very little time to enjoy the scenery. However, I do remember how dazzling the sunlight was. After arriving in San Jose, we met up with Prof. Ohtsuka, who had traveled separately. We discussed the upcoming presentation and he showed us around the area near the hotel.

Since San Jose is not a tourist destination, we rarely saw other Japanese people outside the conference venue. It is located near Silicon Valley, the city is home to the headquarters of many IT companies such as Google, Adobe, PayPal, and Zoom. For transportation within San Jose, we used both the light rail and Uber. When taking the light rail, we purchased tickets from the automated machines at the stations. There were no ticket gates or inspections, so we could simply board the train. On the other hand, since cars are the main mode of transportation in San Jose, there were many Ubers available. Using the dedicated app, we could easily call a ride. The drivers were friendly, and we were able to travel conveniently and safely.

During our stay in San Jose, we had the chance to meet one of Prof. Justin’s high school friends. When we mentioned that he teaches 'Applied Physics' at school, his friend seemed genuinely surprised at how accomplished he had become. It made me wonder—what kind of student he was back in high school?

At the conference, time flew by as I listened to other participants' presentations and checked out the latest tech exhibits from companies. After finishing our presentations, we departed from San Jose the next morning and returned to Komatsu using the same connecting flights as on the way there. After safely arriving in Kanazawa, I suddenly had a craving for Kanazawa curry for some reason. The next SID Display Week is scheduled to take place in Los Angeles from May 3rd to 8th, 2026. I hope to continue my research activities and student mentorship with the goal of presenting my work there once again.

*Prof. Ohtsuka’s presentation has been uploaded to YouTube @charbax
Please search for “Paper: ICT Kanazawa Hyper-Realistic SDR/LDR Global Tone Mapping 1/30x Exposure” to watch it.

 

 This is Michihiro Hayashi, Engineering Design teacher at Kanazawa campus. From Wednesday, December 4 to Friday, December 6, 2024, I took a business trip to Sapporo, Hokkaido to participate in the international conference, IDW’24(The 31st International Display Workshops).

 Starting from this year, an I4D Contest (Demonstration Contest for College of Technology Students) was held as part of the conference. One of our 4th year students, Shogo Izumiya, gave a demonstration and a speech there. The theme of the presentation was “Differences in Gaze Direction of 3D- and 2D- Avatars: from Viewpoint of ‘Mona Lisa Effect.’” In a painting of a person on a flat canvas, the “Mona Lisa effect” occurs, where the depicted person appears to be looking at the viewer, whether viewed from the front or a slightly oblique angle. How does this effect manifest in a virtual reality environment using a Head-Mounted Display (HMD)? Our task was to demonstrate this through a practical demonstration. HMD is a device worn on the head like a helmet, which provides computer graphics with a realistic three-dimensional vision right in front of your eyes.

 Right after Shogo arrived at the venue, he was very busy preparing the HMD device, displays and other equipment, and putting up his posters on the walls. This was an international conference that used English as the official language. In this regard, Justin Han sensei, who also teaches Engineering Design with us, provided the language support for the posters and the presentation. Therefore, presentations were also primarily given in English. Sometimes we used Japanese for the Japanese speakers, but all posters and other notices were written in English.

Once the presentation started, other students and researchers visited his booth, listened to his instructions, and tried the HMD devices. Even though he looked a bit nervous at the beginning, he got used to it and gave a better presentation. Besides, his efforts to explain his ideas effectively in English were remarkable and easy to understand. This event took nearly four hours, but he was deeply concentrated on it, unaware of the passage of time. However, he seemed quite tired afterward and recovered his energy by eating a lot of Hokkaido food for dinner. In addition, the best and most excellent presentations were selected by the judges. Although our presentation missed out on being selected, after the awarding ceremony, the executive committee chairperson said, “It was a very close decision. Please come to IDW’25 as well. We are looking forward to seeing you.” The next IDW’25 will be held in Hiroshima in December 2025. We will be able to see Shogo senpai presenting with the new 4th year students there. I am looking forward to going with the group again and enjoying Hiroshima food such as oysters and Hiroshima-style Okonomiyaki.