Mindbreeze 2024: Open the doors with the Mouse

On October 3, 2024, Mindbreeze once again opened its doors to young people interested in technology.

This year, our experts Birgit, Bernhard, and Daniel, along with moderator Ulla Pilz, introduced around 70 children to exciting topics of the future. At three stations, the children took an in-depth look at the hot topic of “artificial intelligence”, programmed robots, and learned how visually impaired people live and work with the help of assistive technology.

1st station: Artificial intelligence

At the first station, the children learned how artificial intelligence (AI) learns. Bernhard and Ulla explained to the little explorers that AI is trained using images to recognize animals like an axolotl. Afterwards the children were able to get creative themselves and invent their own “prompts”, for example “a dolphin in the living room”. Bernhard then generated the corresponding images. The children followed every single step live. This allowed them to experience first-hand how AI creates visual content based on their input.

 2nd station: Programming robots

At the second station, the children programmed the humanoid robots Bob and Eve with the help of Birgit. To do this, the children were given cards with individual movement steps such as standing up, sitting and dancing. With a click of the mouse, these different steps were combined into a sequence of movements.

3rd station: Technology for visually impaired people

At the third station, the children discovered aids for visually impaired people with Daniel – starting with a simple measuring tape and a compass and moving on to state-of-the-art technology. For example, Daniel presented the “Be My Eyes” app, which connects blind and visually impaired people with volunteers. The volunteers receive a video transmission from the cell phone camera and help, for example, to determine the color of clothing and to find dropped objects.

Another app that uses AI to describe photos in spoken language was also particularly well received by the children.

Find more impressions of the Mouse Day on our YouTube channel.