On 15 January, an exciting new format took place for the first time at the University of Duisburg-Essen as part of the event 'Technical Presentations of First Semester Mechanical Engineering'. It is intended to give students a playful understanding of exam tasks and the associated solution schemes. With keytech Software GmbH, a solution provider from the area of Product Lifecycle Management Software also participated as a sponsor in the event named Engineer Warrior.
Germany, Recklinghausen 18.01.2019, Tuesday evening, 17:30. Actually a time at which you would not expect too many students on the campus of the UDE anymore. However, the Audimax at the Lotharstraße in Duisburg is quite crowded with students of the course Technical Presentation. Twelve of them are starting this evening to become the Engineer Warrior 2019. After a preliminary round in which multiple-choice tasks are to be solved, four of them advance to the semi-finals, in which two of them have to solve more complex tasks live at the overhead projector against each other. At the end, only one of them will be able to take home the title
"We're trying out the format with the students for the first time this year," says Prof. Dr. Arun Nagarajah, who heads the Department of Product Development Processes and Data Management at the Faculty of Engineering Sciences and holds the Technical Presentation course for freshmen. "It is our goal that the students get a playful feeling for how the tasks are set in the exam at the end of the semester and - even more important - how these tasks are evaluated at the end", Prof. Nagarajah continues. For this reason, the tasks are not only processed live on the overhead projector from the semi-final onwards, but are also evaluated and corrected live by the professor's student staff.
Ein wichtiger Aspekt des neuen Formates sei natürlich der Gamification-Ansatz und auch der Wettbewerb zwischen den Teilnehmern, mit dem die Studierenden für die Inhalte des Abends begeistert werden sollen. „Der Spieltrieb treibt uns immer an.“ verrät Professor Nagarajah, der die Leitung des Fachbereichs im vergangenen Jahr übernommen hatte nachdem er aus der Wirtschaft an die UDE gewechselt war.
An important aspect of the new format is, of course, the gamification approach and the competition between the participants, with which the students are to be inspired for the contents of the evening. "We are always driven by the play instinct," reveals Professor Nagarajah, who took over as head of the department last year after moving from business to the UDE.
"We have been working together with the UDE for a long time now," says head of development Carsten Kruhs, who made his way to Duisburg that evening to personally present the prize. A cooperation that has intensified considerably in recent years. Not only that keytech PLM is now also used in teaching by the mechanical engineers in Duisburg - joint research projects and sponsoring within the scope of Engineer Warrior 2019 are fruits of this cooperation.
The cooperation also expresses keytech's roots. The own software solution keytech PLM has always been developed close to the requirements of engineers and product designers and with this and other actions within the cooperation keytech contributes its small part to support the generation of tomorrow's machine builders.
At the end of the evening, there could only be one Engineer Warrior 2019. It was Jonas Focken who was happy about the title. He had received full points for the final task, in which a 3-screen projection had to be completed, and beat the other semi-finalists Pascal Przemus (2nd place), Serkan Deniz (3rd place) and Markus Schmitz (4th place).
All the students who had gathered at the UDE Audimax on this Tuesday were able to go home with the reassuring feeling of having got a good impression of what to expect in the upcoming exam.
