David Wirth’s Post

Can YouTube be part of formal education? More than four years ago I started recording lab sessions I had to do on my own due to covid restrictions. In the meantime I recorded over 100 videos around electronics and IoT and those videos became a crucial part of my lectures ever since. Why? While you can always expect students to consume knowledge in a constant manner or at Friday afternoon, you get a significant benefit: Time for engagement. Making basic topics available in a video, that every student can watch and pause in the speed he or her needs, makes knowledge not just easier to consume it also gets you better prepared students in the actual lecture. I usually start with a little quiz everybody can participate on the phone, so a little incentive is there to come actually prepared for the lecture. After preparation is ensured the time can be used for questions, discussions, application of the knowledge and way more lab sessions than in a traditional lecture. While I can and I'm happy to explain topics in person, it is something that can partially be done at home with a video. But what can't be done at home, what is the make or break moment for every education is working with the problem, being in person in the lab, discovering problems you haven't been aware they exist, developing a troubleshooting mindset. What are your thoughts about YouTube in formal education? Which way would you use it? Would you abandon it at all? Let me know in the comments! *Video 103 just dropped (link below), if you wanna become part of the journey subscribe and become one of the Blueprint IoT community, counting almost 20k subscribers. #youtube #education #university #lectureing #iot #electronics

Does Ikea makes money on a 4€ lamp? Two weeks ago I had the opportunity to team up with Dejan Tubin and provide a guest lecture about cost engineering. After a theoretical input, covering the basic tools and areas of cost engineering we finally arrived at the challenge of the day: Does Ikea make money? Ikea sells the lamp for 4€ (incl. 19% VAT)! To find out we performed a teardown and a bottom up calculation afterwards. We split into groups, focusing on the injection moulded parts, electrical parts, assembly and packaging. Combining machine hour calculation, labor rates, raw material prices, price analysis for off the shelf parts and more to analyse and calculate the actual costs of the lamp. Right after each group presented their results we put everything together and the result was %$&()§! Curios? Make sure to post your guess of the manufacturing costs in the comments, follow for the unveiling of the results or reach out directly to me if you want to organise your own cost engineering workshop for your team! #costengineering #workshop #lecturing #edication IKEA #ikea Bjoern Rissler Cornelia Ries

Fuel stations give away 2,45l for free! - How a cost engineer refuels   Did you ever notice the little remark at every fuel station? "Volume at 15°C (59°F)" I struck this little remark on the pump a couple of days ago and it made me think if I'm actually overpaying or getting a good deal … yes, that's what cost engineers think while refueling. Part of the scope of a cost engineer is to validate defeat claims from suppliers or even calculate bottom up if the cost for raw material the supplier says he needs, is actually the real value. And that's exactly what I did with my "supplier", the fuel station. Assuming that my fuel demand is equally spread across the year, I checked the average temperature across 2023 in Stuttgart, 11,8°C, so 3,2°C below the 15° the pump is referring to. Since all fluids get denser at lower temperatures (with the exception of water with the densest point at around 4°C), this means I'm actually getting more for my money. But how much more? Taking the coefficient of thermal expansion of gasoline into consideration we end up with an extra of 0,34% fuel. Assuming I'm using one tank (60l) per month, so 720l per year, this would result in 2,45l of free fuel per year! Current prices ranging around 1,75€/l as of right now, resulting in a saving of 4,29€ per year! This is pretty much a quite relatable example of cost engineering, you start with some assumptions, you calculate the potential and you then decide if it makes sense to investigate further. Well, I have to admit, in our case, that's not really given. But what about leveraging this knowledge and optimizing our fuel sourcing? Assuming I have sufficient fuel storage I could buy all my yearly fuel in February, the coldest month here in south Germany in 2023, early in the morning when it's usually the coldest. Average minimum temp of Jan 2023 was 0,5°C. Resulting in 14,5°C deviation from the reference temp of 15°C, running the calculation we get 1,54% more, so 11l, resulting in a saving of 19,25€ Comparing this to the worst possible point in time of the year, buying your yearly demand in June midday at av. 26,1°C, you get around 8,5l less, so 14,88€ overpay. As a result the biggest possible deviation sits at 34,12€. So next time you refuel, check the temperature ;) #costengineering #fuelprice #forfree #giveaway #fuelstation

Chop saws, cost engineering and the definition of ingenuity While cutting some wood on the weekend I stumbled across a picturesque example of cost engineering: Chop saws! Chop saws became pretty cheap these days, but your ordinary chopsaw has one problem: To enable a longer cut, the blade itself has to be moved, therefore is cradled in a linear slide. The problem is it sticks out at the back and in case you're working on a tight construction space or you wanna place the saw in your garage / shop directly at the wall this isn't possible. So power tool companies got creative and came up with a solution, well several solutions. While many companies came up with many solutions I wanna focus on two of them as an example: Bosch and Festool. Bosch came up with a very clever foldable mechanism. You can imagine those engineers being super proud of their design how it beautifully folds, for sure Bosch ensured to be at the technological forefront. Meanwhile at Festool they came up with a not so "clever" solution. They simply turned the linear sliders around and connected the blade part of the saw to the bearing instead of the tubes they slide on. Thereby the saw itself is sliding on the tube instead of sliding through the bearing. Resulting in zero oncost compared to the traditional design. Besides that you can keep your existing supply chain for bearings and tubes instead of introducing many casting parts. So both designs serve the same purpose, one introducing a more complex design and the other doesn't, for me the definition of ingenuity, solving a problem with the least amount of effort, that's what cost engineering does.     *Disclaimer: The Festool design is not inherently Festool, other companies use the same or similar designs; the Bosch design may come with additional benefits; this is just an example to illustrate CE; I do like Bosch professional products a lot as such :)

Technology is amazing, but collaboration is key. During the last couple of days we designed, tested, discussed many design ideas for brakets, clamps and more for the hydroponics lab at the Duale Hochschule Baden-Württemberg Being able to materialise those ideas quickly and iterate fast enabled us to make huge progress. Having the hydroponics lab being only one floor away from the #IoT lab, three floors away from the #PCB lab and five floors away from the #3Dprinting lab is enabling us to move fast and bring incredible knowledge together. Special thanks to Michael Schlegel and Joachim Hirschmann for making the lab possible, to Arthur Almendinger for supporting with organisation and sourcing. Huge thanks to Ruben Krampulz for leveraging his expertise in additive manufacturing and design for 3D printing and putting countless hours in accelerating our journey towards hydroponics innovations! One of these innovations is literally printing while I’m typing this post and I can’t wait to check the results tomorrow morning and share it with you soon! #hydroponics #3Dprinting #additivemanufacturing #verticalfarming #indoorfarming #iot #education #research #agriculture

Big green news - I'm happy to announce, that we launched the Hydroponics Innovation Hub at the DHBW Stuttgart Besides a dedicated hydroponics lab, students will write theses on artificial lighting solutions, IoT classes will test monitoring systems in the lab and electronic classes will develop power electronics for vertical hydroponic solutions - a true melting pot of IoT, additive manufacturing, electronics and hydroponics! Please feel free to reach out to me if you wanna contribute to the Hydroponic Innovation Hub, no matter if you are a student at the DHBW or you wanna contribute remotely or you're working on a thesis on a different university and you want to run some experiments in a hydroponic lab or you're working for a company in the field. Can't wait to see the first plants growing and the first results of all the tests we will execute. Make sure to follow the dedicated LinkedIn and Instagram page to keep track on the progress! https://lnkd.in/ey-euBUS #hydroponics #agriculture #iot #verticalfarming #education #innovation #research #urbanfarming #additivemanufacturing

You shouldn't use electrolytic capacitors in revers polarity. But what will actually happen if you do so? We tried it so you don't have to! Special thanks for Manuel Philippin who made those slomo and macro shots possible! It was a long Friday evening filming those experiments and we both have been amazed by the destruction we experienced! Thanks for coming along and investing your video making experience and equipment in this project! #explosion #electronics #capacitors #slomo DHBW Stuttgart https://lnkd.in/ejPHxygM

During the last three months two classes of industrial engineers had the opportunity to take their creativity and skills to work in two IoT projects. One class was working on building a cattle farming management system, ranging from GPS tracking of cows to heart rate and temperature measurement. The secound class was building an automated hydroponic system, covering ventilation, monitoring and focusing on the UI / HMI Beside the projects themselfs the students had the opportunity to combine all the competences gained during their three years at the DHBW Stuttgart From designing and trouble shoot an end to end system over circuit design and PCB production to 3D printing housings. Great to see students evolving, tackling problems and celebrating their successes! That’s what it’s all about, establishing a trouble-shooting engineering mindset, grow your skillset and gain self confidence about your capabilities! All the best to all my students and keep an eye on them, great candidates to have in your team! *This text was generated using my personal neural net aka brain, no GPT involvement #iot #electronics #lecturing #university #education

You're not sure what a 🚌 does in automotive and automation? Then start leveling up your knowledge! Bus systems are becoming more and more vital for modern electronic systems, no matter if it's CAN bus in automotive or I2C in IoT. Start learning today by understanding the fundamentals of a bus system! #iot #automotive #can #i2c #iiot #electronics #education #startlearning