Our BOGY internship at VISUS
As pupils of 9th and 10th grade, we decided to get an insight into the world of technology and visualisation. What could be better suited to this than an internship at the Visualization Research Center at the University of Stuttgart?
Day 1: Introduction to BOGY
Our internship began with a brief introduction to the university and an outline of what to expect during our BOGY. We were also informed about possible courses at the university. We were then introduced to the world of programming by writing small applications in C#. We found this difficult at first, but with the help of our tutor we quickly mastered the basics.
Day 2: Insight into studying
On day 2, we worked with the Arduino programmable hardware. We learned about new components we hadn't seen at school, such as a card reader, servo motors and RGB LEDs. Our knowledge from the previous day helped us a lot with the programming. We also attended a lecture in the computer science building to get an insight into the course.
Day 3: Game development with Unity
The next day we were allowed to program our own game using Unity. Our task was to create a simple tic-tac-toe game. This turned out to be very difficult as we had to take into account many different aspects and were constantly faced with new problems.
Day 4: The world of visualisation
On the fourth day, we worked intensively with different visualisation techniques. From Inkscape to Beam Studio to physicalisation – we learned how to present data in a variety of ways.
It was particularly exciting to work together as a team to design models for data visualisation. We were allowed to use the laser cutter to cut and engrave wood.
Day 5: Tour of the building
The highlight of the week was a tour of the building at the end of the week. We took a look at the huge Powerwall, visited the server rooms, and tried out virtual reality and augmented reality glasses. We virtually tested a project for the visually impaired with a doctoral student and looked at holographic atoms.
Conclusion
What do we take away with us?
After a week full of exciting experiences, we are taking home not only basic programming skills, but also an insight into the work of a computer scientist. We learned how data can be represented in different ways and got a taste of what studying at university is like.
How did we like it?
Overall, we really enjoyed the internship. We got to know new people from very different schools and tried out some cool technology: There was everything from VR glasses to laser cutters. The Powerwall was also very impressive. We would definitely recommend a BOGY internship at VISUS!
Many thanks to our supervisors for a great time!
Florian, David, Alexander, Ante, Marek, Christine
More information (in German) can be found here.
