SAIL Hackathon – Intelligent Industrial Work Spaces 2024 at inIT: Focus on creativity and innovation

SAIL Hackathon – Intelligent Industrial Work Spaces 2024 at inIT: Focus on creativity and innovation

From 7 to 9 June 2024, the Innovation Campus Lemgo was transformed into a centre for creative minds and technical innovation. The SAIL Hackathon – Intelligent Industrial Work Spaces, organised by the Institute for Industrial Information Technology (inIT) at the Technische Hochschule Ostwestfalen-Lippe (TH OWL), attracted participants from all over Europe. 

WORKING TOGETHER ON CHALLENGING TASKS

The hackathon offered participants the opportunity to optimise industrial workspaces and put their own programming skills to the test. The challenge was to model engine exhaust ducts while ensuring safety at the same time. Each group started with 100 initial data points and a set budget to acquire more data points. The aim was to find the balance between data volume and cost – a task that mimicked real industrial situations.

DIVERSE PROGRAMME AND EXCITING INSIGHTS

In addition to the challenge itself, the supporting programme offered interesting insights. An informative presentation by Dr Christoph Zimmer from Bosch, Prof. Dr Wolfram Schenck from Bielefeld University of Applied Science and an impressive tour of the SmartFactoryOWL, led by Patrick Spanier, showed the participants state-of-the-art technologies and innovative approaches. In addition, fun activities such as bingo and table football provided variety and good vibes.

THE PITCHES: OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCES AND ENTHUSIASTIC FEEDBACK

The teams’ pitches revealed exciting approaches and different solutions. The feedback was consistently positive, with particular praise for the creativity and ingenuity of the solutions. The winning teams were Smart Glasses (1st place), Scooby Doo (2nd place) and Seabobs (3rd place), who were delighted to receive prize money of 1,000 euros, 400 euros and 200 euros in total.

Prof. Dr Markus Lange-Hegermann, member of the inIT Executive Board, summarised the event: “It was exciting to see how differently the teams approached the challenge and the solutions they developed. And the best thing about it was that we had so much fun and opportunities to exchange ideas. Events like this show the enormous potential of interdisciplinary collaboration.”

THANKS TO SUPPORTERS AND PARTICIPANTS

A big thank you goes to CIIT, the AICommunityOWL and the SmartFactoryOWL for their active support and to all participants for their highly motivated commitment.

The SAIL Hackathon is part of an interdisciplinary and inter-institutional collaboration between Bielefeld University, Paderborn University, Bielefeld University of Applied Sciences and Technische Hochschule Ostwestfalen-Lippe, funded by the Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia.