Vertical urban mobility, smart parking, smart household waste, and peer-to-peer last mile delivery are no new concepts, but their application leaves many open questions. Researchers from HFT's iCity project trained students to use the SimStadt database, industry experts shared best practices.
Most HFT students prepare to become professionals in fields related to urban processes. Such expertise requires the ability to recognise urban problems, conceptualise solutions, manage teams and workflows to complete them. The ability to simulate urban processes is a critical skill to bring about planning decisions. A basic requirement for simulation are digital data sets. At HFT Stuttgart the application SimStadt was developed to make test data accessible to students to probe various approaches to urban problems. Before the official start of the semester HFT students from the International Master Programs Smart City Solutions, Photogrammetry and Software Technology took the opportunity to exchange with professors, industry experts and researchers on urban problems and learn how to use the SimStadt application to simulate the effect of their proposed solution.
Lectures on day one included Bernd Malek (EXXETA) “Project management and software quality”, live demos of Here API by Dominique Schütte (Here API) and of SimStadt by Eric Dumili (HFT Stuttgart, iCity). A visit to xr-Week held on that day across the street from HFT ended the day. Here students were able to mix and mingle with presenters at exhibitions booths showcasing the latest research and applications in augmented and virtual reality.
Wind was the topic of day 2 of the Summer School „Simulation in the City“ which started with a double feature of presentations on wind simulations. Prof. Dr. Ursula Voss (HFT Stuttgart) explained how wind simulations were created for Stöckach in the iCity project. Her focus was on mathematical tools to make 3d building geometries more manageable for calculation processes and on visualizing the result in an animated model.
Kai Babetzki gave students insights into how his team at the engineering consulting firm Drees & Sommer uses wind simulations to bring value to clients, by linking wind speeds to levels of comfort.
In the afternoon students faced wind and rain during the site visit at Stöckach guided by Jan-Timo Ort (HFT Stuttgart, iCity).
On Friday was dedicated to more demo sessions on Web visualisation (Sven Schneider, HFT), Game engine (Patrick Würstle, HFT Stuttgart), and AR on holo lense (Muhammad Alfakhori, HFT Stuttgart).
Full of inspiration and with new skills on how to use iCity’s SimStadt app, students started to work on their challenges.
On Monday eight teams presented their solutions to challenges on the topics Air Mobility, Household Waste, Smart parking management, Urban gardening, Peer-2-peer last mile delivery, CO2 Neutral District, Urban roof gardening, Smart irrigation of public greenery. As members of the expert Jury serverd. David Stahamm (EnBW), Dr. Dirk Pietruschka (HFT zafh.net), Dr. Hanns Menzel (Paul Wolff), Benjamin Heit, Martin Grünheid (beide Stadtmessunsamt Stuttgart), Prof. Dr. Iris Belle (HFT Stuttgart), Prof. Dr. Volker Coors (HFT Stuttgart) und Prof. Dr. Marcus Deininger (HFT Stuttgart).
The Summer School “Simulation in the City” was a one-time event of the HFT Stuttgart under the direction of the Vice-President (Study and Teaching) Prof. Dr.-Ing. Lutz Gaspers and SkiLL under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Volker Coors, Prof. Dr. Iris Belle, and Prof. Dr. Marcus Deininger. The Summer School is funded by the Federal State of Baden-Württemberg, MWK (Ministry of Science and Culture) within the programme to mitigate learning gaps originating from the pandemic.
Picture 1: Tutorial by Eric Duminil on SimStadt with a student participant installing the app live on stage.
Picture 2: Students following the tutorial.
Picture 3: Site visit with Jan-Timo Ort at Der Neue Stöckach.
Picture 4: Visit to XR week where students met among other innovations a mime. Guess if he is real or virtual.
Picture 5: Award ceremony with one of two teams awared first place, from left to right: Prof. Dr. Volker Coors, Prof. Dr. Iris Belle, Prof. Dr. Marcus Deininger, Sourav Karmaker, Mohammad Hosseingholizadeh, Valentin Uwishema, Juan Sardi Barzallo.