Curious inventions have almost become a tradition in the Physical Measurement Technology lecture. With unusual devices and absurd ideas, students prove that they have understood how sensors work and what they can do.
The seminar room is full, warm - and suddenly quiet as a mouse. Around 50 students are eagerly waiting for a small light to light up red and for their fellow student Lukas to press a button at lightning speed. When his excellent reaction time lights up on a digital display, applause breaks out. The reaction game "Senso" has managed to captivate the students with seemingly simple means. As everyone here knows, building the small electronic device was not actually that simple. What looks like a game to outsiders is actually the final exam of the Physical Measurement Technology lecture.
Physics and Medical Physics students have spent a semester working on the devices, which they are now presenting to their fellow students and their lecturer, Prof Dr Bernd T. Meyer, for the first time. On the tables are small plastic dinosaurs here, chocolate sweets there, one student has brought a large birdhouse and two students are even carrying a pineapple plant in a pot into the seminar room. All these things belong to inventions that only have things in common at second glance: All of the constructions have sensors built into them that can measure different physical parameters, such as temperature, charge, force, noise or brightness. In addition, they all use the electronic components and software of a particular provider that specialises in making it easier to get started in electrical engineering and programming.
"What the students ultimately build is largely up to them. They should learn how sensors work and what can be done with their measurement data," says Meyer. He makes no secret of the fact that he personally enjoys those inventions the most that incorporate a good dose of humour, absurdity or even supposed pointlessness. "Nerdy stuff" is expressly allowed and the end-of-semester presentation is therefore always quite entertaining - despite the marking involved.
This semester, for example, Felix and Paula invented perhaps the most annoying alarm clock in the world and gave it the very appropriate name "Morning Misery Machine". Once activated, it blares mainly un-relaxing songs such as AC/DC's "Highway to hell" at the desired wake-up time thanks to its built-in MP3 player and small loudspeaker. There is no snooze button. If you want to switch off the alarm clock, you have to memorise the order in which the diodes light up on a display and then enter this pattern yourself by pressing a button. In the last escalation level, four notes of an A major scale even have to be put in the right order. "That's really annoying," report Felix and Paula with beaming faces.
Paul and Tim's allergy helper "Apollo Uno" could put a similar strain on the nerves of its users. It not only knows the current allergy weather, but also reacts to human sneezing by saying "Attention, pollen count" to the person sneezing - as if they hadn't already noticed this themselves. "It may be that the person has forgotten their predicament and then there is a considerable risk that the window will be opened for supposedly fresh air," the students argue with a wink in their project description. After all, if the sneeze is "moist" - as measured by a corresponding sensor - "Apollo Uno" gives access to a tissue box.
This semester, Arne and Leonie have solved a problem from their childhood: the great weakness of the so-called mood rings. These were supposedly able to reliably indicate the current state of mind of the wearer by changing colour accordingly. However, there was one thing they couldn't do: improve the wearer's reported bad mood. The "Moodinator" can now do this. Like the previous mood rings, it uses a person's body temperature to determine their mood, displays the result with a coloured light and, if necessary, releases a chocolate sweet to cheer them up.
Leon and Louis even used measurement technology to teach their pineapple plant to speak - and had to spend hours watching the comic series "Spongebob Squarepants" to do so. After all, what voice could have more expertise than that of a yellow sponge in trousers that lives inside a pineapple? Thanks to soil moisture, photo, temperature and motion sensors, "The Dramatic Pineapple" now knows what it is missing and can call out to its passing owner with a suitable Spongebob quote. Practical.
A dinosaur board game with an electronic dice and electronic mini-games, a bird house that automatically releases the right amount of food when a bird flies into it or an "Useless Box" whose sole purpose is to display itself in as many different ways as possible after being switched on - this year's student inventions are definitely very creative. However, they also report on how tricky such "fun projects" are during their presentations. Too few slots on the hardware board, inconclusive measurement results, motors that were too weak or the most complicated programming for a touch display challenged the students.
Meyer is visibly satisfied with his students' achievements. "Tomorrow I'm sure I'll have sore muscles in the corners of my mouth from all the grinning," he says, bidding the course farewell. The next crazy inventions will certainly not be long in coming. The next lecture on physical measurement technology will take place in the 2024 summer semester.
