Prof. Dr. Christoph Schierz
Fachgebietsleiter
Telefon +49 3677 69-3731
Fax +49 3677 69-3733
PF 100565
98684 Ilmenau
Prof.-Schmidt-Str. 26
98693 Ilmenau
In 2008, the sponsoring association initiated an annual information day for students, at which the department and lighting technology companies presented themselves. The aim is to inform students at an early stage about the activities of the lighting technology department and to show that the lighting technology industry has a very great need for highly qualified lighting engineers.
Since 2014, the sponsoring association has called on all students of the TU Ilmenau to participate in the annual ideas competition. Designs and initial realizations of innovative lighting concepts are in demand. The association has been able to win over the UNIKAT student workshop for practical help with implementation. For some ideas, the VFL was also involved afterwards by financing material for implementation as part of bachelor's or master's theses.
In 2022, two ideas were awarded prizes, both of which were further developed as part of projects.
Jenny Reinhardt came up with the idea of the GreenLights smart flower pot, which also has an integrated humidity sensor. An app reminds you to water and you can adjust the lighting individually.
The GravityGarden by Philipp Tschakert makes indoor gardening easy. This is made possible by automatic watering, lighting, fertilizer supply, temperature and climate control, as well as analysis of growth status and plant health.
At the general meeting of the sponsoring association on November 8, 2019 in Ilmenau, Hendrik Thiedke was honored by the association's chairman Bert Junghans for his concept. The idea of an intelligent, so-called "Moving Living Lights MOLLI" developed by him was awarded with a one-year scholarship. Since then, work on the idea has been ongoing. During Hendrik Tiedke's master thesis, a prototype with many functionalities was created in this way.
In order to be able to implement the idea in his own company, Hendrik Thiedke was supported by the start-up service of the TU Ilmenau. He was a member of the first "Ilmkubator Class".
Why should a headlight only be able to move in place? Tristan Reintjes asked himself this question and submitted a mini-prototype for a transversely movable moving head in 2017.
Over the next three years, a group of students from various degree programs then tinkered with a functional prototype whose functionalities could all be controlled via a light console. In 2019, the result was exhibited at the TU Ilmenau's Open Day.
Together with Lennart Planz, the winner of the 2016 competition Simon Lanfermann further developed his idea of the "Multi-Divisio" luminaire with the support of the sponsoring association. In the course of their bachelor theses in the engineering informatics course, the impressive functional model of a kinetic smart home luminaire was created.
Individual light units can be changed in color and arranged so that they can be moved. The luminaire can be controlled remotely via a web server. The system was presented to the public at the LiTG e.V. university stand at the "Light & Building" trade fair in March 2018.
