Lecturers from Ulm University of Applied Sciences will visit your school to deliver lessons on scientific topics tailored to pupils’ needs, or your class can visit the university to experience lessons at the university. We currently offer the workshops listed below – but we’re sure we can also find an expert on other topics that are of particular interest to you at the moment.
Students starting in the third grade of elementary school take their first steps into the world of electronics and build simple circuits using LEDs and switches. Older students build more complex circuits, such as flashing circuits or bistable flip-flops, working with transistors, capacitors, and other electronic components.
The workshop can be held at THU or at the school. The content and duration are determined in consultation with the teachers. The electronics kits used are provided by THU.
Can be held at THU or at the school
Duration: approx. 90 minutes
Starting in 3rd grade
Max. one class (30 students)
The global medical supply crisis during the coronavirus pandemic was largely due to an acute shortage of ventilators. Many public, industrial and private initiatives attempted to counteract this with "do-it-yourself" basic solutions that could be produced quickly and in large quantities, with the motto: better than nothing. But how do you test the safety and effectiveness of such devices without endangering the health of test subjects? In this lesson, we want to think about this together and finally ventilate a virtual corona patient using an Ambu bag on the THU lung simulator ("glass lung"). At the same time, the students will get an overview of what it takes to study medical technology.
The offer is aimed at classes and courses in the upper school and does not require any special knowledge beyond intermediate physics and mathematics.
Contact person: Prof. Dr.-Ing. Heiko Peuscher
Everyone is talking about artificial intelligence (AI). AI systems can think—or so they say. But do they also understand the meaning of what they say? What is the difference between syntax and semantics? Every student learns this distinction in German class. But robots have never been in German class. And even more importantly: Do robots have feelings? Is it possible for robots and AI computers to develop consciousness, to feel fear and joy—and if so, what would they feel if they were to consciously encounter humans one day? Does one love one’s creator? Ralf Otte explains in an accessible way the current state of artificial consciousness—the hottest topic that will immediately follow artificial intelligence.
Contact: Prof. Dr. Ralf Otte
The penetration of artificial intelligence into all areas of life is on everyone's lips these days. Robots, autonomous driving, voice control and algorithm-based financial instruments sometimes seem like magic. But behind it all are modern computer science processes from the field of machine learning. These in turn are based on mathematical methods that can be quite complicated, but do not have to be. We will look at methods that are based solely on fractions, but do this so skillfully that it is possible to automatically decide whether an online retailer should send a customer vouchers or whether a message received is spam or ham.
Contact person: Prof. Dr. Reinhold von Schwerin
Does chocolate give you spots? Do boys or girls have a better reaction time? Does chewing gum protect our teeth? You can get to the bottom of these and many other questions with a clinical study. The aim of a study is to answer medical questions and thus improve the treatment of patients. In this project, we want to plan a small clinical study on a scientific question together, i.e. formulate the hypothesis and determine the study design. We will then collect and analyze the data ourselves. At the end of the project, we will be able to answer the question "Is the result significant and what does this mean for our study?".
Contact person: Prof. Dr. Kathrin Stucke-Straub
Radar sensors are key components in autonomous driving and intelligent mobility. They can be used to determine distances, speeds ("speed cameras") and the positions of objects. Among other things, research is currently being carried out into how pedestrians and other road users (including animals) can be automatically identified using radar. Radar sensors can also be used to look through walls (e.g. in burial chambers in Egyptian pyramids), locate people buried under masses of snow or determine the flow velocity of rivers. In these lessons, we will first discuss the structure of a radar sensor and also talk about the representation of signals in the so-called time and frequency domain. We will then carry out our own radar measurements on pedestrians and then discuss the characteristic signature that a pedestrian produces in the radar image.
Contact person: Prof. Dr. Thomas Walter
Whether it's the temperature in the oven or the speed of our car: wherever we specify a target value and want to automate compliance with it, control engineering methods are used. Exponential functions, those strange signals that are described by their own derivative, occur very frequently. We want to understand the significance of exponential functions using everyday examples and use them for control engineering purposes. Numerical simulations and practical experiments will illustrate and verify our analytical considerations.
Contact: Prof. Dr. Heiko Peuscher
Dwindling resources, global warming, the climate emergency, and reducing CO2 emissions. What is technically possible today to ensure a safe, economical, and environmentally sustainable energy supply? We’ll show you our labs, where we focus on renewable energy, electrical engineering, control systems, thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, and simulations.
Grades 11 and up
Duration: 1 hour
Maximum participants: 24
Contact person: Institutsleitung-IEA(at)thu.de
We're making a lamp that generates light using solar energy—it's sustainable and emission-free.
Grades 7 and up
Duration: 3 hours
Participants: max 10
Contact: Institutsleitung-IEA(at)thu.de
Electric mobility is a major goal for the future. We’re starting small and building a fully functional, sleek solar-powered vehicle.
Grades 5 and up
Duration: 3 hours
Max. 10 participants
Contact: Institutsleitung-IEA(at)thu.de
Everyone is probably familiar with the game "truth or dare" - but is it possible to measure the "truth" quantitatively? Yes, you can - using the electrical resistance of the human skin, which depends on the activity of the sweat glands, among other things. In this project block, we are building a simple electronic circuit with a small microcontroller that can measure skin resistance directly. This makes it possible to measure in real time who reacts cooler to questions. As an application in industry, such a system can be used to analyze the user-friendliness of products.
Contact: Prof. Dr. Dr. Ronald Blechschmidt