A special kind of machine instruction: 22 preschool children learn how to work with wood.
A correct and professional handover of the machine always includes an introductory briefing and the training of the operating personnel - as in this case as well: 22 preschool children of the Versbach kindergarten "Villa Wichtel" received a lathe. Five students from the University of Applied Sciences Würzburg-Schweinfurt in mechanical engineering and industrial engineering had designed, documented and constructed a child-friendly lathe in a total of six hundred hours under the direction of Professor Dr. Veselin Panshef as part of a development project.
The students explained the structure of the lathe, which is driven manually by its own muscle power and can turn a wooden body into two different variants. The students met trained "employees": In the kindergarten's own wood workshop, the preschoolers learned the basics of how to work with wood. Even when the students describe how the working hours up to the completion of the lathe are composed, among other things, with an introduction to the task, the so-called morphological box, first sketches and solution approaches up to concrete data and facts of the prototype and its documentation, one boy tells us that he too first painted his monster man before he wanted to build it.
The children as well as the students learn and deepen so-called soft skills in these projects in addition to technical skills: Safety and self-confidence are taught, for example, as well as work in a team, realistic time management, adherence to rules or the ability to criticise.
At the end of the development project, students are judged on, among other things, the quality of the presentation, the ability to work in a team, creativity and initiative, flexibility in terms of location and availability, individual reliability, the ability to "sell" ideas internally and externally, and the quality of the project report.
