Sustainability, digitalization, artificial intelligence and entrepreneurship - these are just some of the important topics at the Technical University of Munich (TUM). TUM organizes Project Weeks every year to offer new interdisciplinary teaching formats and approaches outside the usual course of study. They create a framework in which students and lecturers can work on innovative issues and current topics that are of particular interest to them, beyond disciplines, curricula and locations. In multidisciplinary teams, they not only expand their specialist expertise, but also strengthen their interdisciplinary skills.
From January 8 to 12, 2024, the Department Health and Sport Sciences offered a total of four projects for which students could apply.
Mental & Physical Health Action Space
Dr. Daniela Schwarz and Elke Langbein from the ELDA team at the Associate Professorship of Didactics in Sport and Health of Prof. Dr. Filip Mess took the successful inclusive settings from the TUM School of Medicine and Health as an opportunity to further develop them across schools and make them transferable in order to creatively promote health-related and interdisciplinary work and learning at TUM. Using a basic concept of collaborative teaching and learning approaches, a positive and goal-oriented way of dealing with current social challenges, such as those resulting from the war in Ukraine, was described. The TUM students from different disciplines jointly created solutions for health-related problems with the help of the participatory involvement of experts. Creative design thinking methods, role and perspective changes as well as learning tandems were used as important elements of active teaching.
Contact persons: Dr. Daniela Schwarz & Elke Langbein (Team ELDA)
Assessment in Neurological Disease
For the Project Week, the Chair of Human Movement Science under the direction of Prof. Dr. Joachim Hermsdörfer, Head of the Department Health and Sport Sciences, organized an intensive kick-off block week together with the Neurological Clinic under the direction of Prof. Dr. Bernhard Hemmer. Students from various degree programs learned about the intricacies of recording sensory and motor functions in the context of neurological diseases. This was done, for example, manually by a neurologist during a consultation or as part of studies using motion capturing systems or wearables. In the coming weeks, small working groups will complete the development of instrumented test procedures and validate them in case-control studies with people with multiple sclerosis. The sensors of smartphones will be read out, markerless motion tracking methods will be used and the touchscreens of tablets will be utilized. The students are supervised by Dr. Philipp Gulde (Human Movement Science), Prof. Dr. Friederike Schmidt-Graf, Dr. Benedikt Becker and Dr. Katrin Giglhuber (all Neurology).
Contact person: Dr. Philipp Gulde
Football Analytics Hackathon
At the Football Analytics Hackathon, which was conducted under the direction of Prof. Dr. Daniel Link from the Chair of Performance Analysis and Sports Informatics, 50 TUM students and PhD students competed against each other in a total of nine teams in challenges to develop analysis models for soccer using spatial-temporal player and ball data from Bundesliga matches. The results were then evaluated by experts from academia, professional soccer and the sports industry. The three best teams will be allowed to take part in the "SportsInnovation 2024" conference, which will take place on 20/21 March 2024 in Düsseldorf and is organized by the Deutsche Fußball Liga (DFL), among others. There, the three teams will compete in the final for prize money of up to 4,500 euros.
Contact person: Prof. Dr. Daniel Link
Sensors and Wearables for Automated Detection of Nutrition, Physical Activity and Sleep
As part of the project week of the Assistant Professorship of Exercise, Nutrition and Health under the direction of Prof. Dr. Karsten Köhler, TUM students from different backgrounds received a project-oriented introduction to lifestyle issues such as nutrition, physical activity and sleep. In addition, modern sensors, wearables and smartphone technologies were discussed, with the help of which lifestyle can be recorded and correlated with health in the long term. On the one hand, the theoretical foundations of various approaches were taught, and on the other hand, self-developed experiments were carried out in which the students were able to collect and analyze their own data. In group projects, different lifestyle challenges such as a change in diet, the interruption of the usual sleep cycle or exercise were analyzed. In addition, the participants were familiarized with a wide range of sensors and wearables that can be used to automatically detect eating behavior, physical activity and/or sleep.
Contact person: Prof. Dr. Karsten Köhler
"I am delighted that we were prominently represented as a Department across TUM with four Project Weeks at our Chairs and Professorships," says Prof. Hermsdörfer, Head of the Department Health and Sport Sciences. "This is a form of learning that is enormously successful and has a promising future. In this way, we can also convey methods and content very well to the students. In addition, the composition of the participants is always very heterogeneous. We reach very different areas of TUM through the project weeks, so our topics are also very appealing to students from other Schools and the feedback is correspondingly positive." According to Prof. Hermsdörfer, the financial support of 10,000 euros for each project week means that external partners can also be invited or new instruments purchased.
However, the Department Head notes problems with the timing of the event: "The Project Weeks are currently taking place parallel to ongoing lessons, which is why the organization, coordination and attendance is often somewhat difficult. Unfortunately, we also had some last-minute cancellations as a result. For the future, it would therefore be desirable to either hold the format in the last week before the start of the semester or to make the Project Weeks mandatory for all students on a common date. Of course, this solution has far-reaching implications for TUM."
To the homepage of the TUM Project Weeks
Contact:
Prof. Dr. Joachim Hermsdörfer
Head Department Health and Sport Sciences
Chair of Human Movement Science
Georg-Brauchle-Ring 60/62
80992 München
phone: 089 289 24550 / 24600
e-mail: joachim.hermsdoerfer(at)tum.de
Text: Romy Schwaiger
Photos: Dr. Daniela Schwarz/Dominik Langbein/Dr. Philipp Gulde