A contribution for increasing the interest of high-school students for MEMS technology, engineering, and physics

An approach to increase the interest of high-school students in technical and scientific subjects is presented based on the experimentation platform VenDASys. The system allows the interfacing of various (micro-)sensors and actuators with a minimum of peripheral electronic hardware and hardware-based coding, which often proves frustrating for students. Thus, it is ensured that high-school students and also teachers as intermediaries can directly concentrate on and successfully deal with complex experimental set-ups. In training modules or extracurricular activities, exemplary sensor modules were realized together with high-school students covering the range from basic school lessons to practical every day experiences to current research topics. Successful realization of experiments especially in MEMS-based applications at a comparatively early stage of their education definitely increases chances that high-school students choose a technical education later on. This will help to close the currently existing gap between the need for and the availability of technically qualified personnel.