Abstract
Robot soccer competition is a new learning method introduced in the Faculty of Information Science and Technology in the past two years. Previously, various friendly matches have been held between the National University of Malaysia team and Malaysian polytechnic students. However, not all of the students, especially the FTSM students felt the fun of the game. Therefore, the competition format is applied in two courses; TC2263 - Knowledge-based Systems and TR3343 - Real Time Systems. Parallel with the purpose of student self-centered learning method, assignments are given to the students to develop the best robot soccer game strategy. They only need to attend some lectures and laboratory sessions and they are given the opportunity to complete the remaining tasks individually until the day of the competition. There are three methodologies used in this research; the data taken during the in class competition where it is judged by external judges who are experts in robot soccer, the observation of the final grade, and finally the questionnaire through the Course Teaching Evaluation System provided by UKM. The application of robot soccer competition in this class has shown increased performance in analytical and critical thinking skills in problem solving, and programming skills and technical report writing. Besides that, the application of robot soccer competition can also realise self-centered learning among FTSM students. (C) 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd.