zdi Girls’ Weeks

Kleve/Kamp-Lintfort, 11 May 2015: Over the past few weeks, zdi has been focusing entirely on encouraging girls to pursue careers in STEM subjects. The zdi cleverMINT Centre for the Kleve District at Rhine-Waal University of Applied Sciences also took part in the zdi Girls’ Weeks during the Easter holidays, running a programme in the school laboratory on the topic of ‘robotics’. During the three-day introductory Roberta workshop, girls in Years 8 to 10 had the opportunity to explore the world of robots. Under the guidance of the certified Roberta teacher, Mr Sven Herold, various robot models were built and programmed, and the robots were taught to perform some rather unusual tasks.

On the final day of the workshop, the participants visited the company ‘Fastems Systems GmbH’ in Issum to gain first-hand insight into the practical application of control technology. Mr Thomas Teurlings, Production Planning Manager, and two apprentices told the young girls about the ‘automation’ department within the company and gave them a tour of the production facilities. 

Across the state, the zdi regions organised numerous projects in North Rhine-Westphalia from 16 March to 24 April, aimed exclusively at girls and young women. The zdi Girls’ Weeks are designed to help schoolgirls engage with science and technology subjects at an early stage and to show them, in an exciting and practical way, just how important the STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) are to our society.

The zdi Centre for the Kleve District, cleverMINT, is delighted with the positive feedback received on this robotics course. The course sparked great technical interest among the participants. Owing to the positive response, the zdi Centre for the Kleve District, cleverMINT, plans to offer further Roberta courses in future in collaboration with various partners in the student laboratory at Rhine-Waal University of Applied Sciences.

Information on the current zdi STEM programmes and summer holiday workshops can be found at www.zdi-kleve.de.

This so-called MINT BSO programme (career and study guidance) was funded by the Federal Employment Agency and the Ministry for Innovation, Science and Research of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia.