As part of his bachelor thesis, our first OESA scholarship holder Alex looked at the potentials and challenges of robots in education and developed a workshop for children on this basis. This took place in cooperation with robolab of the Bücherhallen Hamburg, we reported about it here. OESA supported Alex in his scientific work, established the contact to the practice partner robolab and coordinated and financed his stay in Hamburg. A closing dinner with the OESA board was organized to talk about next steps and of course to ceremoniously hand over the scholarship certificate.
We interviewed Alex at the end of the nine-month collaboration and decided to share a summary of the conversation for potential fellows.
OESA: What was your absolute highlight?
Alex: The workshop with the kids was a lot of fun. I was positively surprised by the children’s interest and how they formed their own opinions through the didactic concept. Seeing how they interact with the robots and the ideas that came up in the conversations was definitely my highlight.
OESA: What new things did you learn?
Alex: Besides the researched content, scientific writing was still unfamiliar to me. In our discussions and annotated versions of the paper, I learned a lot about tone, expression, the content structure of a text, and nuanced phrasing.
OESA: What difficulties did you encounter?
Alex: Due to school vacations and other appointments, the workshop had to be pushed back in time, which meant that the work got a bit bogged down and the timing didn’t work out as initially discussed.
OESA: What would you like to pass on to future fellows?
Alex: The OESA scholarship enables a new perspective. Instead of writing your first scientific thesis on your own, the fellowship gives you the opportunity to ask any question. Because there are very low-threshold contact persons with a lot of knowledge and experience, but at eye level.
We thank Alex for his valuable contribution and wish him all the best for the way after graduation!