From March 7 to 11, 2022, the first Science Camp of the Alliance Thuringian Engineering Sciences took place at TU Ilmenau. For one week, 35 Bachelor students from the seven universities of the Alliance THÜR ING dealt together with the topic 'Digital Twin'. Interdisciplinary teams developed digital representations of wind turbines that captured and evaluated sensor data in real time.
For Prof. Dr. Lars Abrahamczyk, Bauhaus University Weimar, a "Science Camp is an opportunity to experience new things. Students can simply think outside the box, learn what others are doing and, of course, work on a project together. Topics are dealt with that otherwise cannot be dealt with comprehensively in the course of studies. So it's precisely what practice needs in the end: being open to new ideas and being able to interact with colleagues from different disciplines." This opportunity was now taken by 35 students from all over Thuringia for the first Science Camp.
The program was quite extensive, as is necessary for such an intensive learning experience. In the morning, professors and experts from industry gave thematically complementary lectures that broadened the horizon of possible applications. In the afternoon, teams tinkered and worked, tried things out and learned by doing. And in the evenings, the students, who were now only distance learning for a long time, were happy to have the opportunity to meet each other.
Not only the students from Jena, Weimar, Erfurt, Nordhausen, Schmalkalden, Ilmenau, Gera and Eisenach lived the idea of an alliance of Thuringian engineering sciences, also the cooperation of the lecturers was tangible. Prof. Dr. Stephan Husung from the TU Ilmenau introduced the digital twin from the perspective of product development, Prof. Dr. Christian Koch from the Bauhaus University Weimar showed uses of digital twins in civil engineering, Prof. Dr. Frank Schrödel from the University of Applied Sciences Schmalkalden applied the topic to questions of robotics. Prof. Rolf Kruse from the University of Applied Sciences Erfurt spoke about application scenarios of virtual and augmented realities, and Eva Knahl from the University of Applied Sciences Nordhausen completed the interdisciplinary arc and spoke about wind energy systems. From the engineering practice, Ulrich Oertel and Holger Fritsch from Bachmann Monitoring GmbH spoke about the real application of digital twins in the field of wind energy.
The digital twins of the wind turbine models presented here at the end of a week all included their own solutions for specific use cases. The students learned how to program the Arduino controller and how to work with CAD models and databases. Above all, however, the engineering creativity required to solve concrete use cases became tangible for them.
With so much new knowledge, it is easy to become overwhelmed. But as Prof. Dr. Stefan Sinzinger, Vice President for Research and Young Scientists at the TU Ilmenau, emphasized in his welcoming address at the end of the event, the motivation of scientific work is based precisely on cooperation in teams and the interlocking of different disciplines, on curiosity and continuous learning. And so the challenges for the students were always a stimulus of scientific ambition and at the same time an ongoing opportunity for mutual support.
In the future, similar Science Camps will continue to take place at other locations of the THÜR ING alliance and form an important pillar of the ProTELC (Pro Thuringian Engineering Life Cycle) project. The next one is already planned in half a year. Five students from each university will always work in mixed teams on real industrial problems. Joint courses at the universities prepare the Science Camps.
Science Camp:
Coordination Bauhaus University Weimar: Prof. Dr.-Ing. Lars Abrahamczyk and Prof. Dr.-Ing. Christian KochTechnical University of Ilmenau: Prof. Dr.-Ing: Prof. Dr.-Ing. Stephan Husung and Prof. Dr. rer. pol. habil. Anja Geigenmüller
