Alen Hsiao in a dark jacket, Taipei and 101 at dusk behind him (illustration).

Taipei at dusk · Illustration

04 · 關於 guānyú — about

Alen Hsiao

I like making ideas tangible.

A computer science student at National Taiwan University in Taipei.

Now: Researching offline, goal-conditioned RL in NTU’s Embodied AI Lab; Building Camelot Nights and Bullheads, games for the browser; Exploring Physical AI, starting with a small robot of my own

Explore my story

The question

How do intelligent systems learn?

My research focuses on offline, goal-conditioned reinforcement learning: how an agent can learn to reach goals from previously collected experience.

Right now I’m reproducing published baselines, one method at a time.

Embodied AI Lab, National Taiwan University · Currently: HIQL on OGBench

The research in detail

Concept sketch · choose a part

How I make things

Games are where I learn what people actually do.

Bullheads

Bullheads is a game about avoiding penalty cards, so I gave the penalty a face: one bull in three moods, neutral, smug and shocked, from the logo to the card backs.

Full style sheet

For my 2026 Foundations of AI final, I also built an agent for 6 nimmt!, the game Bullheads plays by.

View project

Bullheads: a real game in progress, cards landing on the rows

A real gameFour players, cards landing on the rows

Camelot Nights

It started as Avalon. What I rebuilt most on the way to Camelot Nights was the reveal, so that every player goes through it together: the server times each cinematic for the whole table.

View project

Camelot Nights when it was still called Avalon: the table, the vote and the title

First versionWhen it was still called Avalon

The revealRole cards, as they turn over now

Physical AI · exploring

Exploring how a robot becomes useful.

Alongside research, I’m exploring entrepreneurship: how to turn ideas in AI and robotics into useful products, and what it takes to make them work outside a demo. I approach it the way I would a product: understand what people actually need, test small, and iterate before building more.

Building a robot of my own lets me explore hardware and interaction alongside my research. Right now that is a MicroDuck replica: 3D-printed parts, hardware experiments, and tests with people.

A simple model robot arm on a wooden desk, a block in front of it and a target ring to its right. — Not my robot: a separate interactive illustration of observe → act → refine.
Find the block and where it should go.
About this model
A generic arm modelled in three.js for this page, to show the loop of observing, acting and refining. It is not the MicroDuck, not a trained policy and not lab footage.

Life

Away from the desk.

Alen Hsiao on the water in New York Harbor, the Statue of Liberty far behind.

Alen Hsiao with another person at night in Shanghai, lit buildings behind them.

Alen Hsiao, seen from behind, looking at Van Gogh’s The Starry Night.

Alen Hsiao in a Broadway theatre balcony, the red curtain behind.

Alen Hsiao in the seat of an airliner flight simulator.

More moments 4 photos · show

Contact

Let’s build something useful.

Email contact@alenhsiao.com Download CV

CreditsFonts, code and media · show

Generated images, made with Codex rather than photographed, are listed below; most carry a small “Illustration” tag where they appear.

Embodied AI Lab concept illustration: Generated with Codex for this site; Generated illustration · concept art, not documentation
ExhiBeat concept illustration: Generated with Codex for this site; Generated illustration · concept art, not documentation
Play chapter scene (Camelot table): Generated with Codex for this site; Generated illustration · concept art, not documentation
Playground scene (cards on felt): Generated with Codex for this site; Generated illustration · concept art, not documentation
Brush calligraphy 遊作記: Generated with Codex for this site; Generated illustration · concept art, not documentation
Cover illustration (Coney Island boardwalk): Generated with Codex for this site; Generated illustration · concept art, not documentation
Hero illustration (Taipei at dusk): Drawn in code for this site; Illustration · placeholder until my own photograph
Interim hero image (Taipei at night): Generated (Codex); Generated for my project · illustration, replaced by my own photograph
Explore Taipei still (3D model render): Rendered in this site from OpenStreetMap and AWS Terrain Tiles data; Own work · map data ODbL
Social share image: Alen Hsiao / Codex; Own work
Notes masthead (desk at night): Generated with Codex for this site; Generated illustration · concept art, not documentation
Notes banner illustration (desk at night): Drawn in code for this site; Illustration
Bullheads screenshot: Alen Hsiao; Own work
Bullheads game screenshot: Alen Hsiao; Own work
Bullheads trailer: Alen Hsiao; Own work
Camelot Nights screenshot: Alen Hsiao; Own work
Camelot Nights reveal storyboard: Alen Hsiao; Own work
Camelot Nights game screenshot: Alen Hsiao; Own work
Camelot Nights phone screenshots: Alen Hsiao; Own work
Camelot Nights trailer: Alen Hsiao; Own work
Camelot Nights character art: Merlin: Generated for Camelot Nights (Codex built-in image generator); Generated for my project
Camelot Nights character art: Percival: Generated for Camelot Nights (Codex built-in image generator); Generated for my project
Camelot Nights character art: Morgana: Generated for Camelot Nights (Codex built-in image generator); Generated for my project
Camelot Nights character art: Assassin: Generated for Camelot Nights (Codex built-in image generator); Generated for my project
About portrait (Taipei at dusk): Generated with Codex for this site; Generated illustration · concept art, not documentation
Observe / Act / Refine desk scene: Modelled in three.js for this site; Own work · concept model
Bullheads style reference: Alen Hsiao; Own work
Bullheads bull mark: Alen Hsiao; Own work
Process clip · bullheads-gameplay: Alen Hsiao; Own work
Process clip · avalon-first: Alen Hsiao; Own work
Process clip · camelot-reveal: Alen Hsiao; Own work
Slicing toy on /play and the footer link hover (ported): Evangelos Giatsidis (giats-portfolio), via bt2go personal-site-template; MIT with attribution · original portfolio design and development by Evangelos Giatsidis
Instrument Serif: The Instrument Serif Project Authors; OFL-1.1
Instrument Sans: The Instrument Sans Project Authors; OFL-1.1
Noto Serif TC (subset to the characters used): Google / Adobe (Noto CJK); OFL-1.1
IBM Plex Mono: IBM Corp.; OFL-1.1
Astro: The Astro Technology Company; MIT
React: Meta Platforms, Inc.; MIT
Motion: Motion Division Ltd.; MIT
Lenis: darkroom.engineering; MIT
three.js: three.js authors; MIT
Rules for the 3D Taipei scene (flyover, lerp, tone mapping, mobile budget): tsogjavklann, awwwards-3d skill; MIT · approach followed, no code copied
<model-viewer>: Google; Apache-2.0
Buildings, roads, rivers and parks in the 3D Taipei scene: © OpenStreetMap contributors; ODbL-1.0 · heights estimated where untagged; Taipei 101 modelled from its published dimensions
Elevation of the Taipei basin in the 3D scene: Mapzen / AWS Open Data Terrain Tiles (SRTM, NASA); Open data · SRTM public domain; attribution per the Terrain Tiles terms
Scroll and transition techniques on /about and the work cards (sticky grid, SVG path drawing, thumbnail to full-width image): Codrops: Theo Plawinski, Tom Miller, Manoela Ilic; Podium case study by Julien Sister and Benoît Delorme; Approach followed, no code copied