Taipei, Feb. 2 (CNA) The Tang Prize Foundation announced on Friday the winner of its creative competition for high school students, with Tainan First Senior High School garnering the top award for its innovative invention - a board game.
Nicknamed the Asian Nobel Prize, the Tang Prize is funded by Taiwanese businessman Samuel Yin. In 2015, the Tang Prize Foundation teamed up with high schools in Taiwan to launch a program aimed at inspiring students' interest in the award's four fields -- Sustainable Development, Biopharmaceutical Science, Sinology and Rule of Law.
In this year's contest, the team of students from the Tainan high school won the award for an invention related to the biopharmaceutical science and sinology categories of the Tang Prize, with a board game they invented that is themed after traditional Chinese medicine. In the game, players take on the role of doctors to compete with each other to treat patients by dealing cards that feature various prescriptions.
According to the team's instructor, Chen Yu-chi (陳禹齊), his students created this knowledge-based game by researching information about Chinese medicine.
At first, Chen said he was somewhat skeptical when students pitched the idea about a medicine-themed board game, and was surprised that the game also became a huge hit among students in other schools.
He pointed out that students also picked up a lot of knowledge during the design process.
Meanwhile, the winner of the silver medal went to National Chung-Hsing Senior High School, which won an award for an invention related to the category of Rule of Law in the Tang Prize. The bronze medal was won by Hsinchu Senior High School for an invention related to the category of Sustainable Development.
This year's competition attracted 22 teams from 14 schools, with medals going to the top three participating teams among all the categories of the award.
Nine teams from seven schools competed in the finals in January, which was titled "Sparking Innovation -- 2017 High Schools Competition," and was held at National Taiwan University on Friday.
(By Chen Chih-chung and Ko Lin)
