Building your own motorbike and drift kart? No problem for the pupils at Kleve’s Konrad-Adenauer-Gymnasium. Under the guidance of Dr Martin Hellwig, the Year 9 and Year 10 pupils designed, soldered and programmed the vehicles as part of their compulsory elective course.
For a whole school year, the young people met once a week in the rooms of the Faculty of Technology and Bionics. First of all, they had to decide on the vehicles: a drift kart, inspired by a YouTube video, and an electric motorbike with four-wheel drive were to be built. They then set about designing, tinkering and, finally, building the vehicles. The chassis are made of aluminium profiles, supplemented with laser-cut steel parts. To be able to assemble the electrical systems themselves, the pupils first had to complete a soldering course at the university; afterwards, they were able to fit the drive systems into the vehicles and programme them accordingly. Along the way, this provided a good insight into what is taught – amongst other things – on the Bachelor’s degree programmes in Engineering and Engineering for Sustainability at the Faculty of Technology and Bionics: mechanics, electrical engineering and programming.
Just how proud the pupils were of their two roadworthy vehicles by the end was evident at the end-of-year celebration at the Konrad-Adenauer-Gymnasium in July. On their own initiative, the participants in the compulsory-elective course had suggested presenting the motorbike and the go-kart there. They summarised their experience on two large posters about the vehicles: “We’ve learnt a lot by the end of the year. The course was great fun, especially the test drives.”
