Student projects

Fitness apps, fitness trackers, life loggers and smartwatches are new technologies that can help us optimize our health and structure our everyday lives. As digital fitness coaches, such systems support and motivate us with the aim of leading a healthy and conscious life. The basis of such systems are microcontrollers that make it possible to store, process and analyze data about our activities in order to make individual recommendations.

This workshop provides an insight into the collection and processing of such data using microcontrollers and invites you to program them yourself in order to record your own body data and gain an insight into how such modern technologies work.

Microcontrollers have long since established themselves as an integral part of industrial applications as well as in the consumer sector. They are used in a wide variety of device classes in which they perform their tasks in secret - embedded in systems. These tasks can range from simple individual applications such as digital thermometers to complex applications such as the control of entire smartphones.

The workshop offers a first insight into the world of embedded systems based on a widely used microcontroller. Basic knowledge of hardware-related programming is taught, which is necessary for programming the microcontroller. This enables participants to create small embedded systems. This knowledge is then deepened in a practical and motivating way within independently implemented projects. Previous knowledge of programming is not required and will be explained step-by-step during the workshop through the guided solving of subtasks.

The LEGO Mindstorms platform offers the possibility to construct autonomous and mobile robots with the programmable LEGO brick (the so-called "intelligent brick") and the existing electric motors and various sensors. These are able to perceive their environment via the sensors and interact with it.

In this workshop, students learn about the requirements for autonomous systems. In addition, by programming the Mindstorms robots themselves, they are given an illustration of a simple example of an embedded system in which the microcontroller of the Brick works together with electromechanical parts and sensors.

Programming is carried out using the Bricx Command Center development environment in a C-like programming language, whereby the most important processing steps are already implemented in prepared functions. Programming skills are not necessary for participation in the workshop, as the students are introduced to programming step by step by solving subtasks.

In addition to the basic physiology of hearing and key findings in psychoacoustics, students learn about the wide range of applications of digital audio signal processing. They will gain an insight into current model-based development approaches as well as current audio signal processing methods such as MP3 coding. They can then use simple models of a model-based development environment to gather their own listening impressions and create simple projects themselves.

During a guided tour of the laboratory facilities, current (research) projects are presented using interesting exhibits and a wide range of possible applications of what has been learned during the course are demonstrated. This gives the pupils an insight into the diverse areas of application of an information technology engineer.