Since May 2018, the exhibition “DIGIHAND – Digitalisierung des Handwerks erleben”, has been on tour in Germany. Until yesterday, the last stop was the district of Beckum-Warendorf. Altogether about 1.000 visitors came to Düsseldorf, Remscheid and Heidelberg to find out about digital support of craftsmen.

Fraunhofer FOKUS participated in the exhibition with the exhibits “Smart Learning – a digital learning guide for technical education” and “Augmented Reality – Planning of interior fittings”.

The exhibit “Smart Learning” from the business unit FAME showed a software that supports craftsmen actively in the learning process. In this case, similar to the smartphone, smart means that the learning app adapts to the user and their needs. Unlike in a static learning environment, a learning recommendation system has been developed which specifically responds to the level of knowledge collected, and displays appropriate recommendations for learning. This allows knowledge gaps to be filled in a targeted manner and exam-oriented learning to be more efficient.

The second exhibit “Augmented Reality”, made it possible for the visitors to enter virtual reality. Supported by the smartphone, it was thus possible for them to equip living spaces both in terms of design and technology. The vision of the Fraunhofer research team is that, in the future, the interior design of buildings will no longer be carried out with a folding rule and spirit level as well as hand-drawn floor plans, but instead with a smartphone or tablet. Any objects on the device, such as light switches, lamps, shelves, pictures or other furniture, can be placed intuitively and spatially directly on site in the real room or building. By “X-ray vision”, cables and tubes that have already been laid (or planned) are even visible in the digital view. The rooms designed in this way can then be saved in the digital building model and used for all further work.

In addition to Fraunhofer FOKUS, the project also involves the Institute for Future Studies and Technology Assessment, the University of Applied Sciences Berlin (HTW), the Technical University of Berlin and the Wuppertal Institute. The project is being promoted by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).