The funding is intended to make it possible to integrate pioneering technologies even more strongly into teaching. Jan Willmann, Professor of Design Theory and Design Research at the Faculty of Art and Design, is currently working with Lars Abrahamczyk, Junior Professor of Advanced Structures at the Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering, to develop a new teaching module that introduces students to practical work with robotic arms. The prospective engineers, architects and designers acquire basic knowledge in the conception, design and implementation of robotic interaction and manipulation. Using their own experiments, they learn how robotic materialisation processes (e.g. joining components) can be designed and new types of objects and structures can be created. In doing so, they directly interlink data and material as well as design and realisation. 

»Although Germany is well placed internationally in the field of robotics when it comes to ›classic‹ robotics topics such as manufacturing and automation, weaknesses are evident in the areas of creative applications, human-machine interaction and artificial intelligence,« explains Prof Willmann. »Another key field of action is the construction sector,« adds Prof. Abrahamczyk. »The potential of genuinely »smart« and, in particular, flexible robot systems is often underutilised in the construction sector and their potential is still insufficiently communicated. This is where we want to start.«

The two professors want to prepare students now to actively help shape robotic processes, systems and automation solutions, as they will affect a variety of sectors, applications and, in particular, the construction industry. The Bauhaus-Universität Weimar has a laboratory area with a robotic system. The Professorship of Design Theory and Design Research has a special international focus on creative robotics. The Professorship of Advanced Structures also works in this area. It investigates and tests robotic construction processes in order to efficiently and precisely connect components of bridge structures, for example.

These two areas are now to be interwoven in teaching: driven by development and research, students from different disciplines will be encouraged to take an interest in the topic and introduced to the constantly changing state of research. With the help of the funding, a new, interdisciplinary teaching and learning format for robotic applications in design and construction will be designed at the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar in the winter semester 2024/2025, which will directly bring together design and engineering science.