Finding safe routes for children
E-Government students win first-semester computer science competition
Once again, numerous students of the Bachelor’s degree programmes "Media Computing" and "E-Government" of the Faculty of Communication and Environment took part in the annual internal computer science competition for freshmen. Two E-Government students, Maximilian Brüll and Raphael Ferres were able to prevail against all fellow students and won first place.
Awarding of certificates, Maximilian Ferres (l) and Raphael Brüll (r)
The annual competition is part of the "Fundamentals of Computer Science" module, in which Professor Dr.-Ing. Ulrich Greveler teaches the technical fundamentals of computer science and the structure of computer networks.
In this year's competition students had to evaluate a large open data set from the city of Moers on pedestrian traffic of adults and children. Professor Greveler asked his students to solve the following problem: "Imagine you are supporting traffic planning and have to find safe routes for young pedestrians." The students then had to write a programme to evaluate the traffic counts and determine the place and peak times of children walking in the city. The biggest challenge in the competition though was the time limit of only one hour.
Well within the limit, Maximilian Brüll and Raphael Ferres tweeted the correct solution, securing the competition victory. Evaluating data under time pressure was a new experience for many.
“An interest in logic and a creative approach to the digital world are ideal prerequisites for studying”, says Professor Greveler who organizes the competition. “Our competition is a special challenge: the result has to be achieved very quickly, but it has to be correct."
Maximilian Brüll (18) is studying E-Government in dual mode and has been working at the Computer Centre of the Finance Administration NRW since the beginning of his studies. At school he had already taken an advanced course in informatics. His fellow student Raphael Ferres (19) is employed at the NRW State Office for Salaries and Benefits and has already gained a qualification as an information technology assistant.
Since winter semester 2020/2021, the E-Government degree programme is being offered in an additional, dual-vocational mode of study in collaboration with the State Government of North Rhine-Westphalia.
The programming exercise demonstrates the benefits of digital methods in planning: Thanks to administrative informatics and the evaluation of public data records, it is possible to find dangerous spots and contribute to the safety of vulnerable road users.