since about a year, the hci group offices have an automatic door for accessibility reasons. we have already installed a little bluetooth actuator that can press the button on command. also, there is a key switch to change the door from automatically closing after a few seconds to staying open.

from our day-to-day practice, we find that this setup creates a number of problems. eg. when you have a seminar, you want the door to stay open for the students to arrive, but when the seminar has started, the door needs to be closed again. usually, the lecturer forgets to close the door, which means it stays open, creating a nuisance in the hallway (it is a large door) and a security problem for us. a good solution for this problem would be if the door could see calendar entries and stay open and closed according to some simple rules, eg. 15 mins before and after a seminar starts.

the goal of this bachelor or master thesis project is to create an automation framework that allows us to experiment with such automations. this could eg. be a raspberry computer connected to some actuators, that can easily be accessed from within our network and told to eg. open the door (when the doorbell rings) or switch status. the project starts with user research within the hci group to find out what kinds of automations can be envisioned, and work from there to create a stable working prototype that can then be evaluated.

we have a makerlab at the HCI group: the physical design lab. researchers and students use the lab to produce all kinds of interesting, unique artefacts using 3D printers, laser cutter, knitting machine, etc. the goal of this bachelor thesis project is to design and implement an infrastructure that makes it easy to document these things, so that we have a gallery of cool physical design lab artefacts.

the resulting system should be easy to use, independent of external IT services and easy to maintain and administer. at the same time, it should offer at least rudimentary protection against abuse and spamming.

embedded ethics is an approach where lecturers in all courses are discussing ethics aspects regarding their own subject. a number of studies [eg. 1, 2] have been conducted indicating that this is a better approach than offering a seperated »ethics in technology« course.

some universities have created extensive »open source« repositories of the materials created by and for various lectureres that showcase the inclusion of ethics aspects into all kinds of subjects.

in this bachelor- or master thesis project, these materials will be examined for the use in teaching in mandatory courses of the TU wien informatics bachelor program. basically, each course at TU wien will be matched with appropriate entries in the repositories; then, the content of these entries will be translated and localized, and, where appropriate, materials will be produced. the results of these process will be documented in a format that also will have to be developed, and made available to the lecturers in the respective courses.

additional councelling by our resident AI ethics professor will be available.

It is completely unthinkable that somebody studies physics without learning about Gallileo or Newton, or philosophy without thinking about what Socrates or Kant wrote. Unfortunately, it is quite common to study informatics without knowing anything about the history of the discipline, or the origin of the ideas and concepts of informatics.

As a consequence, a lazy default story about US-american startups, run by white men, has taken hold. Since this is neither accurate nor flattering for the discipline, this master thesis project is focussed on the goal to picture a more inclusive story of the history of the IT industry, of the field of informatics, and of the ideas in this field. from this research, a card game (eg. trading card game), maybe based on a fantasy theme (like pride, prejudice and zombies) or similar to pokemon etc. should be designed and, ideally, deployed and evaluated.

while the game should be a real-world card game, it could have a digital component via QR codes or NFC tags.

Basis dieser Bachelorarbeit für 1 Person ist der Artikel The hardest working font in Manhattan. Der Artikel beschreibt, einen Font, bestenfalls unter dem Namen »Gorton« bekannt, der durch die Produktion eines Gravurgerätes ca. 1897 massenhafte Verbreitung zumindest an der US-amerikanischen Ostküste gefunden hat.

Um dem charakteristischen Schriftbild neues Leben einzuhauchen, soll eine Web-Applikation entwickelt werden, mit der aus eingegebenem Text 3D-Modelle gravierter Platten in hoher Auflösung entstehen können. Dabei sollen unterschiedliche Templates zur Auswahl stehen. Im Idealfall findet die gesamte Verarbeitung in JavaScript im Browser statt, sodass das HTML auf einfachen Webservern gehostet werden kann.

Es soll ein Online-Memory-Spiel entworfen, implementiert und getestet werden, mit dem das Lösen eines Memory-Spiels als notenrelevante Leisung in TUWEL ermöglicht wird.

In den »Denkweisen der Informatik« gibt es acht Kapitel. Um eine Überprüfbarkeit der Auseinandersetzung mit den Inhalten dieser Kapitel zu ermöglichen, wurden verschiedene Ansätze ausprobiert (Arbeitsblätter, Multiple-Choice Quizzes, Volltext-Leitfragen), die alle auf ihre eigene Art gescheitert sind.

Für das Wintersemester 2025 soll daher ein neuer Ansatz versucht werden: die »Schlüsselbegriff-Memory«-Spiele, die bisher im Rahmen des Game-Based-Learning-Ansatzes der LVA verwendet wurden, sollen online verfügbar gemacht werden, indem sie als notenrelevante Leistung in TUWEL umgesetzt werden.

Dabei bietet sich beispielsweise H5P als Technologie an, für das es als proof-of-concept bereits (mäßig brauchbare) Memory-Spiele gibt. Ziel der Bachelorarbeit für 1-2 Personen wäre, die Studierendenseite wie auch die für den geplanten Einsatzzweck optimierte Administrationsseite einer solchen Lösung zu entwerfen, gestalten, implementieren und evaluieren. Die Lösung soll im WS2025 eingesetzt werden.