A passion for solving puzzles

Viola Kraut loves numbers and codes. Information technology problems don’t put her off – they're an exciting challenge. “Computer science is my favorite subject. I enjoy the puzzles and the logic,” says the twelfth grade student at the Schloss Hansenberg boarding school in Geisenheim, Hesse. It's therefore no surprise that Viola Kraut excelled in the INVENT a CHIP (IaC) competition, in which VDE sets tasks and challenges relating to artificial intelligence and microchips.

For Viola Kraut, it was a no-brainer: “My computer science teacher asked me and I was immediately on board.” The focus this year was on artificial intelligence (AI); Viola Kraut worked with an AI language simplifier at the IaC camp and saw first-hand the interaction between software and hardware. AI software was trained to process various signal words as audio signals. Depending on the word recognized, a predefined lamp on an FPGA board then came on. The challenge for the student was to link up the areas of audio, AI and hardware. The competition has reinforced her desire to study in the STEM field later on.

Algorithms, programs and the like also play an important role for her outside of the classroom; Viola Kraut took part in the national and youth computer science competition and is involved in the computer science club. “There, we can implement the projects that we personally are interested in,” she says. The fact that her free time also revolves around zeros and ones is partly due to the profile of the boarding school – and the type of school. The pupils live on the school grounds and are involved around the clock.

“Competitions like INVENT a CHIP are extremely important because different disciplines are promoted and participants learn to think multidimensionally,” says school principal Dr. Annette Petri. Her boarding school, Schloss Hansenberg, had already taken part in the microchip competition in previous years and achieved a high ranking. This year, the 76 pupils taking part in the IaC quiz went one step better, answering almost all the questions about microchips, semiconductor production and the energy consumption of AI correctly and winning the IaC school prize, which included prize money of 1000 euros.

http://www.inventachip.de/ (in German)