Floating balls, strobe lights, 3D drawings – the range of topics was wide during the Future Day at WAGNER on April 27, 2017. 24 boys and girls from the fifth to tenth grades visited the Langenhagen company headquarters for a day to find out what the daily work of the global fire protection expert is like behind the steel facade of the building.
Divided into groups, the children and young people went through the three stations for measurement technology, compressed air and electrical engineering. They not only learned theoretically what soldering irons and air nozzles are used for, but were also able to try them out for themselves. Those who had a little patience and a bit more skill got a long way.
Assembling functional model
In the measurement technology area, for example, a strobe light was used to measure how fast a fan rotates. To do this, the students had to set the flash frequency so that it looked as if the fan was standing still. "It wasn't that easy. A very precise value had to be achieved. The fan finally stopped at exactly 3512," said sixth-grader Niklas.
For the air pressure area, the boys and girls used an air nozzle to make small polystyrene balls float
For the air pressure area, the boys and girls used an air nozzle to make small polystyrene balls float. Whoever could keep the most balls floating at the greatest inclination was clearly the winner of this experiment. However, the competition began with coming up with ideas for the "floating ball", creating the components as a 3D drawing on the CAD workstation and assembling a functional model. Aiman (7th grade) and Nadine (5th grade) found that this was a complex task that worked even better with teamwork: "It was quite difficult at the beginning, but we helped each other. Then it went well."
Equipping electrical circuits
In the area of electrical engineering, the young researchers tried their hand at soldering and equipping electrical circuits with various functions, such as flashing lights or random generators. Of course, they were allowed to take everything they built home with them. And those students who still hadn't had enough of experiencing the technology that is used daily at WAGNER during the break were allowed to shoot rubber figures at cans using compressed air - a kind of analog of Angry Birds. The cans then fell off the table with a loud bang to loud laughter. It should come as no surprise that this game was also very popular.
The sixth Future Day was organized and accompanied by, among others, Niklas Möller from the application department at WAGNER. He received active help from his colleagues Katharina Rischer, Olesja Görke, Jan-René Stöver, Jörg-Klaus Friedrich, Rolf Wendt, Dr. Rüdiger Noack, Dr. Alexander Günther, Alexander Kremer and Dr. Andreas Wicke.