Researching, Building, Being Amazed - DIT's holiday programme

12.8.2020 | THD-Pressestelle

There was a lot to discover, explore and build again this year during the holiday programme of the STEM project at the Deggendorf Institute of Technology (DIT). There was a great rush for the three events. In addition to the regular dates, two more dates were offered.

The holiday programme started with the "Planetary researchers". Here, 20 girls between the ages of eight and ten used the opportunity to use Lego WeDo to build the small Mars probe "Milo". First of all, they took a close look at the solar system and puzzled over what a robot like this must be able to do in order to be sent on a Mars mission. Terms like solar panels, cameras, gripper arms and transmitters came into play here. After construction, the little Mars robot was set in motion by means of graphic programming. To enable the robot to detect obstacles and send signals to Earth, sensors were installed and programmed accordingly. The participating girls worked with great dedication, resulting in very creative robot designs. 

The second holiday programme was under the motto "Build yourself an artifical hand". The approximately 20 students, ages 12 to 14 years, were given the taks of designing and building an artificial hand made of Lego Spike Prime parts. A large number of components, sensors and motors were available for this. The creative and fully functioning robot hands and gripper arms were tested in action by means of graphic programming. 

During the all-day programme "Get to know the exciting world of computer science", the pupils from grade 8 onwards had the possibility to program a text-based Lego-Mindstorm robot. In the second part of the programme, an app was developed which can be used to control the robot. In between, there were exciting discussions about the use of robots. In addition, the students used the opportunity to exchange their own experiences in the field of virtual teaching and learning through the Internet with students.

The DIT holiday programme always takes place during the summer holidays and most other school holidays and is aimed at students with an interest in STEM topics. The programme is organised and carried out by the STEM project of the university. This summer the organisers Tanja Zellner and Anna-Katharina Kaiser were actively supported by Irina Sigl, media technology student. 

Bild (DIT): The participants of the DIT holiday programme obviously had fun designing and building the artificial hand.