Technology and creativity at the open project day in the IWK department

The student motorsport team presented its new G24e e-car directly on Hochschulstraße. The media project “This is what sustainability means to me. A portrait of BRS motorsport team members”, which exhibited its work on display walls around the racing car. Professor Susanne Keil led the project together with Tim Breuer, Master's student in Digital Communication and Media Innovation, who explained: “The aim was for the students of technical journalism and visual technical communication to use their skills to show the people behind the technology. In particular, their motivation and attitude towards alternative drive systems, as research shows that these in particular are still the subject of controversial debate. Especially when it comes to the representation of gender in the context of technology.” In their project, which is also a prime example of interdisciplinary collaboration in the IWK department, they want to show that things can be done differently.

One door down, students presented the development of pneumatic test benches for teaching, which can be used for future semesters. Professor Sebastian Drumm gave the students a completely free hand in the development of the test benches: “The biggest challenge was certainly the unexpected problems that arose during development. For example, the CAD software ran incorrectly or the design that had been devised did not work in practice. That's precisely why you build prototypes like this.” In this project, a team of students developed and built a pneumatic can press that compresses beverage cans within seconds. Michel Karthe, a fourth semester mechanical engineering student, was involved in building the press: “That's minus 25 cents deposit, but plus 25 cents fun! We wanted to develop a structure that simulates pneumatic constructions and is fun at the same time. That's when we came up with the idea of the can press.” According to Karthe, a number of problems arose during the complex development process. For example, it was not considered that the can would be so light that it would tip over in the guide. True to the motto “necessity is the mother of invention”, a sawn-off brush head is now to prevent the can from falling over.

All Bachelor's students in the IWK department take a project each semester, which they work on during the project weeks. The engineering and media project work is presented to the public at the end of the last week of lectures. The Open Project Day offers interested pupils in particular the opportunity to get to know H-BRS, make initial contacts and find out about the various study options.