In the New Devices Lab, second- and third-year Bachelor's students in Computing Science devise their own projects, using sensors, cameras, microcontrollers, and more to develop new devices. This year, the challenge was even greater, because the students' projects didn't just originate from their own ideas, but were based on assignments from companies and organisations.
Getting started
The students set to work on the following projects: a smart wheelchair for Parkinson's patients who, due to tremors, are not always able to steer evenly with a joystick (De Waalboog); GPS trackers and navigation for people with dementia (DrieGasthuizenGroep); bird-friendly bird detection for floating solar parks – where birds like to nest, but this reduces the yield of the panels (NXP); and a system that allows tremors in Parkinson's patients to be recorded more objectively. Also on display: an art project in which students created an installation that was critical of artificial intelligence or AI (Studio Synergy).
Learning to deal with clients
Education in which assignments are carried out with and for social partners is called challenge-based learning, and Radboud University is increasingly working with this approach. Mart Lubbers, coordinator of the New Devices Lab, is enthusiastic. “For the first time, working with wishes from partners. There is more to it than when you come up with your own assignment. The most important thing is that you have to adjust your expectations, both for the client and for the students. It's important to learn that before you've finished your studies.”
Training for the semiconductor industry
Contact with companies and institutions in the region was established in collaboration with OnePlanet OpenEducation. OnePlanet is an innovation centre in which Radboud University, RadboudUMC and Wageningen University & Research collaborate. OnePlanet's OpenEducation programme has extensive experience with challenge-based learning and, as a result, strong contact with companies in the region.
Karien Vermeulen, coordinator of this programme, says Radboud University and OnePlanet are contributing to the Lifeport Talent Plan Semicon through this collaboration, which aims to train more than 6,000 talented individuals in the Lifeport Arnhem Nijmegen Region for the semiconductor sector. “We want to bring education and the professional field closer together. Challenge-based learning, with questions from professional practice, is ideally suited for this.”