Insights into Automotive Engineering and Mechanical Engineering
Twenty students from the Technical High School at the Ravensburg Vocational School visited RWU and tried their hand at automotive engineering and mechanical engineering. During the visit, they even took on the role of instructors themselves.
How does a roller dynamometer work? What happens during injection molding? And how can technical complexity be explained in simple terms? Twenty 12th-grade students from the Technical High School (Technology and Management track) at the Ravensburg Vocational School explored these questions during a visit to RWU.
Under the motto “Explain it to me!”, the students, divided into four groups, worked their way through various stations in the university’s labs and workshops. On the roller dynamometer, they used an electric vehicle to investigate how a roof box, air conditioning, or tire pressure affect an electric car’s energy consumption. At an injection molding machine, they produced their own plastic bottle openers, and in the metal forming lab, they observed the production of a double-walled component from a metal tube. Finally, at the bicycle test bench, they were able to test their own physical fitness.
What made the workshop special was that the students were not only active participants but also took on the role of instructors. At each station, they first made a prediction and then tested it through experimentation. Afterward, two students from each group explained the basics and procedures of their station to the next group—as simply and clearly as possible. For example, the functioning of an injection mold was compared to a waffle iron.
Understanding Technology and Sharing Knowledge
The workshop was designed and led by Steffen Köhnlechner, a student in the Automotive Engineering PLUS Teacher Education program. “When you have to explain something, you quickly realize whether you’ve truly understood it,” he says. “It is precisely this combination of technology and teaching that defines our program.” The Automotive Engineering PLUS Teacher Education program combines engineering content with subject-specific didactics and pedagogy. The program opens up technical career opportunities while also paving the way for a career as a teacher at vocational schools.
The stations were supervised by Professor Dr. Thomas Schreier-Alt (injection molding), Armin Leuter (metal forming), Ralf Hermanutz and Thomas Frei (roller test bench), as well as Phileas Schweizer and Professor Dr. Martin Störzer (bicycle test bench). The accompanying teachers, Thomas Teubert and Jan Pfeiffer, were also enthusiastic. For their next visit, they hope to have even more time for experiments and discussion. The event was organized as part of a collaboration between RWU and the Ravensburg Vocational School, coordinated on the university side by Heike Krumm.