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 Ven.DASys. 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. (C) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.