Electrical Engineering Workshop students produce amazing work despite corona

The students' amazing skills and creativity were evident in the completed assignments from the Electrical Engineering Workshop course. The results were presented for the third time using remote connections. The Electrical Engineering Workshop is a bi-annual course where student groups can design and develop a working electrical device. Participants do not need to have any prior experience in coding or electrical equipment; everything is learned on the course. The course is well liked and many students and alumni say it was the most interesting and fun course of their entire studies. The Electrical Engineering Workshop course is aimed mainly at first-year electrical engineering students but it is open to all Aalto students. Year after year, more enthusiastic participants join the course from all Aalto University schools.

'The best thing about this course is when a student is able to rise from a near-zero level to an expert. This has happened every time we have ran this course. The completed assignments and their complexity are often a big surprise for both the makers themselves and the teachers,' says university lecturer Kimmo Silvonen.

The course assignments have traditionally been presented in the final exhibitions, which bring together the audience and students in the facilities of the School of Electrical Engineering in Otaniemi. During the corona epidemic, students have presented course assignments through videos instead of a final exhibitions. Due to the nature of the course, students could not attend the course entirely remotely, so corona restrictions have posed challenges to running the course.

'At times, strict restrictions have brought challenges to student work and special arrangements were also needed. However, autumn 2020 was particularly good. New students who had just started clearly wanted to participate in on-site teaching and also had time for it. This spring, the course also went quite well. The first spring with corona and sudden stops was more difficult,' Silvonen says.

Spring 2021 project works

Below are videos of project assignments which received an award from the Ulla Tuominen Foundation. The videos are in random order.