Filling learning content with life and not simply filing away results are two of the goals of a project that the realschule I and the lorenz-kaim vocational school have tackled together. The project group headed by matthias klinke wants to build a bridge between theoretical teaching results and real-life applications.
Eleven students from grades seven to ten are sitting intently in a classroom at the vocational school, simulating the programming of a robot. Its gripper arm is to sort black and white logs from A to B.
In free time
The young people are sacrificing their free time to work on the project, which they find "totally exciting" find. The components are designed in a CAD (computer aided design) program and then printed out on the 3-D printer at the secondary school.
Later, of course, the robot should also work. Here, the deputy principals of the RS I, matthias klinke, and the vocational school, werner zahner, work very closely together. "If the finished parts of the school are lacking, they can still be reworked. After that, the function will be tested and a digital twin will be created", explains zahner.
The teachers see the schools as a "heterogeneous group that educates itself". 13-year-old johannes, who is generally interested in computers, says: "I haven’t really found the whole thing difficult so far. If I get stuck, I just get help."
Experts are needed
His fellow student felix, on the other hand, already finds it more difficult to cope with the requirements. Christoph also had to familiarize himself with the program first, but then it went quite well. The same goes for jan, who "will later do something in the direction of computer science or mechanical engineering" anyway wanted to do. And fabian says: "if you know the basics, it’s simple."
RS principal christa banisch puts it in a nutshell: "the students have to tell the robot how to do it. In the future, they must not be the ones who fear for their jobs because of a robot."
Rudolf schirmer, head of the lorenz-kaim school, puts it in similar terms: "the region must solve the shortage of skilled workers on its own, because our potential is far from exhausted."