The Challenge Based Innovation Fusion Point (CBI-FP) is a program which focuses on real-life societal challenges, specifically in topics related to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and its methodology comes from Design Thinking, Challenge-Driven education and Experimental learning. Currently, this program is running its second round, where 43 students are working in interdisciplinary teams to create solutions to real societal problems.
Throughout this round, the eight teams of students are working around SDG 3.9: reduce Illnesses and death from Hazardous Chemicals and Pollution, SDG 11.6: reduce the Environmental Impact of Cities, SDG 14.1: reduce Marine Pollution & SDG 14.3: reduce Ocean acidification. While they were exploring the challenge and some of the ATTRACT technologies at the Fusion Point facilities and in IdeaSquare at CERN, they finally went from problem understanding and definition to solution proposition by the Mid Intensive week which took place from 24-27 October.
During this week, students had the opportunity to attend a Make-a-Thon consisting of a full day of hard work: they had three simultaneous workshops around different prototyping tools such as Arduino programming, 3D printing design & laser cutting design, followed by a challenge to be solved during that day. They also had to design a functional M&M colour sorter in five hours. Even though not all of the student’s team succeeded in the task, the main goal was to show how hard is to build something that works, how to work under pressure and the team dynamics resulting out of it and having lots of fun along the way.
This Mid Intensive week finished with the students presenting their problem and solution proposition to all the coaching faculty team, the ATTRACT Academy representatives and the ATTRACT R&D&I projects assigned, and they received valuable learnings and feedback from different perspectives.
This second round will finish with the students’ presentations at the Gala Final that will be held in IdeaSquare at CERN on December 7th.
More information about the CBI-FP program is available here.
