The Chair for Renewable and Sustainable Energy Systems was one of many TUM institutions taking part in the interdisciplinary school-to-university project “Herbstuniversität” this autumn. The project is aimed at female pupils in class 10 and above, and intends to make the world of science and engineering more accessible to them with the aid of hands-on workshops and cutting-edge research. This autumn, our Chair introduced pupils to the fundamentals of photovoltaics by means of multiple experiments, letting them learn first-hand how PV modules react to changes in the environment. Panel contamination, uneven shading, and varying temperature were just few of the studied phenomena. In a further experiment, the pupils learned how to estimate battery state-of-charge with an Arduino UNO microcontroller. Essential skills acquired in this experiment include understanding and constructing electrical circuits, measuring the open-circuit voltage of a battery, and basic programming. Talk about learning by doing!

More information on the "Herbstuniversität" can be found here (German)!