Project-based education is the standard here

At the D-ITET Center for Project Based Learning students are able to gain practical experience in projects at an early stage.

The center was founded in 2020 as part of the ETH Future Learning Initiative (FLI) and comprises a team of 32 lecturers and administrative staff under the direction of lecturer Michele Magno. In addition to their research activities, the employees support the students, develop teaching formats and manage the workshop and laboratory workplaces.

The various laboratories with motion capturing systems or the workshops - for example for soldering - are the linchpin of the centers. This is where students test their practical work, be it mini-drones, autonomous racing cars or particularly energy-saving algorithms for microcontrollers.

The Center offers project work for all levels, beginning with practical courses and seminars, where students work on an individual project in the final weeks of the semester.

At the heart of the Center for Project Based Learning, however, are interdisciplinary "flagship" projects in which students cooperate as teams. The size and complexity of the subtasks grow continuously, depending on whether the students are contributing to the flagship project as part of a group, Bachelor's, semester or Master's thesis.

The projects are based on current scenarios from everyday life and issues from research and industry: for example, the students develop algorithms, sensors and mechanics so that four-legged robots can guide visually impaired people, work on self-driving small racing cars or develop sensors that provide information on where and how often chairs are used in public places in ETH Zurich.

In all projects, whether small or large, students learn much more than just understanding the course content - they practise finding realistic tasks and formulating them in a technically correct way, implementing a desired function with the existing knowledge, deciding on a solution variant and putting it into practice, with all the pitfalls and uncertainties. In large projects, they also learn how to deal with tight budgets, lead teams and communicate.

In total, the center supports around 600 students with courses and projects every year.

The faculty conference is positive about the fact that projects are offered from Bachelor's to Master's level. This creates a comprehensive and coherent educational pathway for students. The Center consistently combines theoretical foundations with application.