Describing what makes a winning work – this is how Nora Siepker convinced the jury and received the Possehl Engineering Prize for an outstanding thesis on Wednesday, February 22nd. For the first time, the students presented their theses in 5-minute presentations in front of around 100 guests and a jury, who then awarded the best work 5000 euros for first place, 3000 euros for second place and 2000 euros for third place. Karoline Heber, Tobias Schwinghammer, Philipp Wiesenthal, Sebastian Wozniak and their supervisors each received a certificate and a handmade bar of chocolate.
We experienced the Possehl Engineering Award in a nice new format, with exciting pitches from interesting young people. With enthusiasm, the seven managed to bring their complex topics closer to the audience,” says Max Schön, Chairman of the Possehl Foundation.
Remove algae from lakes
That’s exactly what the winner Nora Siepker did with her presentation. The TH Lübeck graduate completed her bachelor’s degree in Environmental Engineering and Management finished with the work “Potential analysis of algae harvest as a means of restoring eutrophic lakes”. Her work is related to a doctoral thesis at the CAU Kiel, in which methods for harvesting microalgae from eutrophic lakes are examined – i.e. lakes in which nutrients have accumulated.
It is thus addressing a well-known problem: in 2015, more than two-thirds of German lakes had too high a concentration of phosphate, which promotes extreme algae growth and can result in the death of many organisms in a lake. Harvesting the algae – which absorbed phosphate as they grew – is said to indirectly remove the phosphate. In her bachelor thesis, Nora Siepker used specific software to determine the amount of phosphate that could be removed from the harvest depending on the filter method. Their results show which advantages each filter method has and which one could even be more energy-efficient. She also analyzed how the nutrient-rich biomass can be reused. This can be, for example, algae paste, a fertilizer base or an insulation additive.
The holistic approach that you followed in your work made a lasting impression on the jury,” says jury chairman Prof. Andreas Schäfer.
Hunting silencer under the microscope
Philipp Trabert has studied the hearing aids completed with the bachelor thesis “Investigation of the directional characteristics of civilian hunting silencers”. In his work he dealt with the effectiveness of silencers on civilian hunting rifles. In previous measurements and standards, little attention was paid to how good the level reduction is depending on the direction. From this it can be deduced how effective the protection is for both the hunter and accompanying persons and also for the hunting dogs. Philipp Trabert set up a complex measurement setup at a shooting range. Thanks to the measurements, Trabert was able to recommend certain silencers and also describe a new, more comprehensive measurement method for evaluating gunshot noise. His work has already aroused interest in the Bundeswehr, which the jury gave as the reason for second place, in addition to the length and importance for practice.
Increase music enjoyment
The graduate Leonard Imhäuser wrote his thesis “Music preference of bimodal cochlear implant users” in cooperation with the University Hospital Schleswig-Holstein and the institute for acoustics of the TH Lübeck. He worked on cochlear implants (CI), which offer people with severe hearing loss the opportunity to understand speech again and thus improve social interaction. However, the commercially available implants are optimized for speech understanding. Enjoying music via the CI is often problematic. The wearers have difficulty distinguishing pitches and can hardly or not at all tell different instruments apart. For the first time, Imhäuser used signal processing that was actually developed for the music industry in order to try to increase the enjoyment of music for CI wearers. Leonard Imhäuser focused on presenting the singing voice louder than the accompanying instruments. In his own tests with subjects, he was able to show, among other things, that CI wearers actually preferred music with accentuated voices compared to a larger group of people with normal hearing.
Your work can improve people’s quality of life. That is very worthy of an award,” emphasizes Andreas Schäfer about the third place.
The President of the TH Lübeck, Dr. Muriel Helbig, together with Max Schön and the deputy chairman of the Possehl Foundation, Prof. Klaus-Peter Wolf-Regett, presented the four certificates and three prizes. “Today’s award ceremony shows how diverse the topics are that are worked on by our students here at TH Lübeck. And our students have shown how highly qualified they are,” says Muriel Helbig. “A special thanks goes to our committed professors, who supervised the students in their final theses,” emphasizes Helbig. Another special feature this year: both the students who did not receive a Possehl engineering award and their respective supervisors receive a certificate of appreciation as a team.
The singer-songwriter Katharina Schwerk accompanied the event in the Bauforum with a soulful voice and her own songs. The students and numerous guests brought the evening to a close with a champagne snack.
About the Possehl Engineering Prize
The Possehl-Engineering prize has been awarded to graduates of the TH Lübeck for excellent theses since 1983. It documents the entire diversity of teaching in technology, natural sciences, construction and business. In these disciplines, the graduates are trained in such a way that they can produce excellent work, of which the outstanding ones are awarded the Possehl Engineering Prize. Since the first award ceremony in 1983, over 75 prizes and prizes have been awarded.