Building of Formula 1 model car stirs work interest

Some of them proudly took home a self-assembled Formula 1 model racing car after they had collected all the necessary parts and experienced its construction.

"It's great because you can try out everything here." Mia, an 11-year-old school student from Esslingen, was very impressed with the "Special show for young people". The two 14-year-olds Kevin and Leonard, agreed with her: "It was great fun, at school we also perform many tasks with technology. We also want to do something with programming when we are older." According to Lukas (aged 9), it was good "to be able to do so many different things here and build a racing car.“ This was also affirmed by Alissa Wiech. She is a trainee in the second year of an apprenticeship for office administration and management at Trumpf and had planned the exhibition together with other trainees. She looked after the laser cutting station during AMB: "The activities went down very well because you could also watch here. Everyone was extremely impressed with the Formula 1 racing car."

Extensive range of information for young people

Modelmaking was only one of the highlights of this Special show in which the Youth Foundation of the German Machine Tool Builders' Association (VDW) aimed to introduce young people to technical topics and arouse their interest in an occupation in the machine tool industry. The objective was therefore to counter the decreasing number of specialists in the German mechanical engineering industry.
The machine tool manufacturer DMG Mori also made use of the opportunity to show the young visitors a live demonstration of state-of-the-art production engineering for CNC training in the era of Industry 4.0. Trainees reported on their exciting vocational training and personnel managers provided information about career opportunities in the machine tool industry. Vocational schools were also represented by complex training projects in the metal working industry. Universities supplied information about the choice of the right study subject while live demonstrations and the daily stage programme were aimed at young people, teachers and trainers alike.

Complete process chain
The Formula 1 racing car was naturally the highlight of the Special show. When collecting the necessary parts, the young people experienced live a production and development process from the drawing through to assembly. This process chain illustrated the attractiveness and the wide range of training opportunities in the industry. It was calculated that everyone who built this racing car will show it to their friends and say at school what a marvellous day they had - and therefore become a multiplier for the machine tool industry.
Heinz-Jürgen Prokop, President of the VDW, was also very impressed. He visited the Special show and encouraged the young people to take up an occupation in the metal working industry: "Digital networking is currently leading to entirely new opportunities and many interesting tasks because IT, logistics and data sciences are now being included in this field." Prokop said that new, exciting aspects are therefore being added to the previous basis which will also apply in future. He dispelled fears that production could move to low-wage countries: "Since the requirements relating to speed and flexibility will increase, it will again make more sense to produce here.“

Digitalisation in training
Peter Bole is the Head of the VDW Youth Foundation. The Special show for young people during AMB provided him with an opportunity to hold discussions with around 800 teachers and trainers, and talk about the imminent changes in training. That's because training must also naturally react to digitalisation of production processes. "As part of a pilot project on behalf of the German Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training, we are currently developing an additional training course "Specialist for digital production processes", which prospective metal cutting machine operators can undergo voluntarily." The course lasts 200 hours and ends with the award of a certificate. The contents of the course will be integrated in normal training in the medium to long term. "We are discussing here, for example, with the teachers and trainers what teaching contents can be deleted for this purpose." Partners of the Special show for young people:
DMG Mori Academy GmbH
Dr. Johannes Heidenhain GmbH
Emco GmbH
FPS Werkzeugmaschinen GmbH
Gebr. Heller Maschinenfabrik GmbH
Green Team Uni Stuttgart e.V.
INDEX-Werke GmbH & Co. KG
Maschinenfabrik Berthold Hermle AG
Paul Horn GmbH
Renishaw GmbH
Siemens AG
SolidCAM GmbH
TRUMPF GmbH + Co. KG
Weiler Werkzeugmaschinen GmbH