The first-semester enrollment figures for the coming winter semester are very good. Is this a good start for a new Vice President of Teaching or a challenge that you will have to measure yourself against in the future?
I am incredibly happy that we, as a team that teaches and promotes our degree programs, have performed so well. Student numbers are a very measurable factor for a wide variety of aspects. We can see how engineering sciences compare to other professional fields. This shows us how we are positioned in the region and perhaps even worldwide. And the figures also show the comparison we have between the different degree programs: What is currently popular, what are the interests? How should we align the degree programs accordingly? Ultimately, student numbers are a nice, measurable variable, but as a competition between generations, I expressly do not want this to be understood as such as the new Vice President of Teaching.
The numbers aren't everything?
Good enrollment figures are one thing. But what industry and society need are graduates. And we as a technical university want as many first-year students as possible who will ultimately become graduates. How can we provide young people with guidance and at the same time retain as many of them as possible? That's why we strive to provide the best possible guidance through our degree programs.
How can prospective students be inspired to take up technical subjects?
First of all, through sheer visibility. That should not be underestimated. Everything that happens in the field of research – whether through our events, robotics courses, children's researchers, or all these activities – generates a recurring perception of the TU, regionally, but also to a certain extent globally. Inspiring enthusiasm for technical subjects is a challenge. And honestly, I would be happy and grateful if I had a recipe for the perfect solution. There is still a lot to try out and evaluate here.
Since 2023, your institute has represented TU Hamburg in the new ligeti center. Your students have developed machines that interpret music in real time and translate it into abstract paintings on canvas. Can creative processes from music be transferred to engineering sciences?
The idea originated in my master's course “Applied Design Methodology in Mechatronics” (ADMM). The aim was to develop an idea into a product in small groups, not only methodically but also practically. The ligeti center enabled us to implement the whole thing in a setting with professional musicians. The robots took up the creative aspects of dealing with a piece of music. The students programmed this in advance. And if you now transfer this to painting, we see the mechanical process of guiding a brush, combined with a selection process, for example, which colors it chooses. In between, something happens that we call creativity between hearing and putting something on paper. The questions are: how much of this can be taught to a technical system as an engineer, and where can I find this area that distinguishes humans from machines?
You work with sensors and actuators on human-machine interfaces. What is special about this research at the ligeti zentrum?
As a mechatronics engineer, I have the opportunity to approach things differently here. I am learning how important it is to appeal to all the senses. Art, especially music, conveys emotion. This is where we can learn a lot from our colleagues at the HfMT, because their sole aim is to evoke emotions through music and theater. They also use technology to achieve this. For us engineers, it's the other way around. We use technology and sometimes think about evoking emotions as well. And my hope, which has not yet been fully realized, is that we can learn from each other. That we can transfer small aspects, small triggers, which our artistic colleagues come across every day because they deal with them on a daily basis, into the didactic and communicative concepts of the TU.
What are the most important qualifications that students will need to acquire in their studies in the future – in addition to the technical tools of the trade?
Academic education involves a great deal of methodological knowledge. We typically convey this through our senses. The more senses are addressed, the better we learn. The art that we as a TU must perform is to create physical spaces in which students can truly experience a didactic goal with all their senses. This could be working with machines and drawing conclusions about the methods and technology behind them. If we expand our opportunities to appeal to as many senses as possible, both passively in experience and actively in action, then we have a real chance of making projects such an event that students will remember them for the rest of their lives.
Can you give an example?
For me, a key moment came during a tour as a young student when I was allowed to touch a machine in a laboratory that was capable of telemanipulation, a live transmission of a self-controlled microscopic mechanical interaction from one location to my hand. I had heard about this before, but actually feeling the subtle vibration of this interaction in my hand sparked my interest in this field and has essentially shaped my research to this day. That wouldn't have been the case if I had only heard about it in theory.
Should we make technology more tangible?
I see enthusiasm among students when they visit our campus technical center and learn about large-scale process engineering systems with their control and regulation technology. When they see the shipbuilding laboratories, when they experience robotics live or work on real systems, when painstakingly trained models deliver results based on real data for the first time. This low-threshold and coordinated access must not be reserved for an exclusive circle; we must expand it – with at least one more CampusLab. It makes sense to use this infrastructure in a public context as well. For example, we can create didactically adapted teaching rooms to which we invite schoolchildren. This must always be linked to the resources necessary to ensure that our scientists are not burdened with additional work for such a transfer and marketing.
Read the entire article in the current issue of spektrum (in German).
EN
EN
