School laboratories let students playfully experience the fundamentals of, for example, robotics, computer science, and technology-related topics. By working with LEGO Mindstorms, secondary school students get a chance to learn on a cognitive, emotional, and haptic level and gain experiences with the aid of even more advanced robotics. However, due to an impairment or lack of sight, it is hardly possible for some students to fully participate in a programming process or in building a robot. To overcome this unintentional discrimination, the interdisciplinary student laboratory "RoboScope" at RWTH Aachen University has teamed up with a group of experts to develop a barrier-free robotic course. Since then, the course has been tested and implemented based on concurrent evaluations and frequently held at RWTH and several other German schools. The presented work covers an overview of different kinds of visual impairment and lab settings and the development cycle of the courses at RWTH from design to testing, implementation, and further development regarding the evaluations. Evaluations show that students who are visually impaired or blind appreciate the opportunity to participate in the field of robotics. An insight into the evaluation concept that differs from "regular" courses in the "Roboscope," as well as the results are used for further development.
Abstract The current developments being triggered by Industry 4.0 pose major challenges for robotic education; hence, the demand for students from fields affiliated with science, technology, engineering, mathematics and robotics in particular is steadily increasing. In this research paper, the “DLR_School_Lab_RWTH Aachen”, an interdisciplinary student laboratory created to counter this challenge, is described and evaluated. Founded in 2013 by RWTH Aachen University and the German Aerospace Center (DLR), the DLR_School_Lab RWTH Aachen offers high-tech experiments in the field of robotics to secondary school students. Since its foundation, it has served as a highly successful extracurricular learning venue. Through active experimentation with robots in application scenarios and based on research from aeronautical, space, energy and transport fields, students have had the opportunity to receive an insight into different scientific disciplines and carry out hands-on experiments. The findings of this research suggest that the visit to the DLR_School_Lab RWTH Aachen enhanced the participants’ interest in studying STEM fields. The results are under discussion and further steps, which take the results of these findings into account, are being planned.
Start-ups, especially those with a focus on technical products or services, are known to be a key driver of innovation. Although engineering students are increasingly interested in founding and their start-ups are of considerable quality, Germany has a small number of new start-ups, as well as an equally low rate of innovation in the knowledge-based and high-technology sector compared to some other leading nations. Engineering students, which are most likely to found a tech related start-up seem to lack knowledge and incentives to start an autonomous venture. A survey of 109 engineering students, targeted this issue. It showed that only that 56,7% of the surveyed students could imagine establishing a start-up after completing their degree, but only 6% of the students actually plan to start a business, which was mostly due to the lack of preparation and the individual fear of failure. To face these challenges, the seminar "How to become an entrepreneur" is developed within the project ELLI 2. The extracurricular seminar provides students with skills they need to generate ideas, setting up a business plan and launch their business. Its program follows a two-pronged teaching approach. Theoretical frameworks as well as hands-on problem solving are integral parts of the learning experience to equip the students not only with knowledge, but with the ability of applying the acquired information. This paper outlines the approach of the developed seminar which is preparing students in an academic setting for applying their entrepreneurial knowledge.
Advancing digitisation on the job requires a rethinking and redevelopment towards a new business education that is able to address the challenges of increasing complexity. Business qualification measures have to do justice to an increasingly flexible and interconnected life and work environment that is linked to the application of new technologies. Thus, the industry of the future, including large, medium and small enterprises, must apply new ways and strategies in order to enable their employees to embrace and adequately deal with the new digital chances and challenges. In this, the important question for research and practice concerning business education is not whether digital formats should be integrated into qualification measures but indeed how they must be applied. An important factor for success is the development and support of new digital learning cultures that promote the integration of digital media as intuitive and self-explanatory devices, thus reducing uncertainty or scepticism. In this way, the opportunities that digital qualification measures offer with regard to individual and lifelong learning, agility, topicality, democratic knowledge transfer, accessibility and cooperation can be effectively exploited by employees, managers and organisations. The development and use of innovative digital learning tools and formats is a requirement; however, it is not a sole guarantee for success. This chapter aims to reflect on the relevance of the development of a fitting digital learning culture within different types of organisations. The varying parameters that are decisive for success are scrutinised: Teachers, students, media and corporate structures each have different requirements, aspirations and contributions towards digitalisation and desired education processes regarding content, goals and methods. Focussing on the manufacturing sector, a concept for developing jointly performed digital learning cultures is outlined in this chapter. It strives to combine and enhance communication, values, didactics, learning contents as well as individual and corporate goals within organisations as livid networks in a digitalised environment.
The term "Industry 4.0" symbolizes new forms of technology and artificial intelligence within production technologies. Smart robots are going to be the game changers within the factories of the future and will work with humans in indispensable teams within many processes. With this fourth industrial revolution, classical production lines are going through comprehensive modernization, e.g. in terms of in-the-box manufacturing, where humans and machines work side by side in so-called "hybrid teams". Questions about how to prepare for newly needed engineering competencies for the age of Industry 4.0, how to assess them and how to teach and train e.g. human-robot-teams have to be tackled in future engineering education. The paper presents theoretical aspects and empirical results of a series of studies, carried out to investigate the competencies of virtual collaboration and joint problem solving in virtual worlds.
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