The specialist for technical education and training is pulling out all the stops in its portfolio - from Bionics4Education to miniature learning factories, learning systems and simulation programs to the Festo LX digital learning portal, the Festo Learning Experience.

"Industrial societies must not accept the shortage of skilled workers of the future as a matter of fate," explains Enrico Rühle, CEO of Festo Didactic. "That's why we want our Bionics4Education initiative to spark enthusiasm for technical professions among children and young people." The initiative combines biology and technology in the Bionics4Education construction kits as part of STEM lessons. These give pupils the opportunity to creatively solve technical problems using bionic methods.

The BionicSwift construction kit is brand new: a robot bird inspired by the swallow that pupils can control using a radio remote control. In this way, children and young people learn about scientific and technical contexts and experience the topics of bird flight and flying in STEM lessons with the help of the learning kit.

Learning and teaching online

Digitalization and working from home have led to new requirements for forms of learning and teaching methods. "Festo Didactic has adapted to this and developed the Festo LX digital learning portal, the Festo Learning Experience," reports Dr. Ute Gebhard, Head of Digital Learning and Training. The learning portal provides didactic learning resources for various technical training professions in small nuggets that can be individually combined into courses and entire learning paths. Varied formats such as videos, animations, simulations, text units and short quizzes ensure that boredom is a thing of the past.

Existing courses can be modified as required. New content in text, image or video formats can be easily added and assigned to learners. This makes it possible to individualize learning. The small learning nuggets also take account of the trend towards micro-learning. Available online regardless of time and place, Festo LX fits in with the information behavior of today's generation of trainees, who spend a lot of time on their smartphones or tablets.

Competence-oriented qualification

Festo Didactic has decades of experience with learning systems on which entire generations of trainees and university students have practiced mechatronic theory and practice. The new MPS 400 series combines automation technology with the requirements of digitalization and uses real industrial components to optimally prepare learners for professional practice.

The topics of electrical engineering, energy efficiency and renewable energies are reflected in Didactic's learning solutions. Competence-oriented training programs for specific job roles and professional profiles, such as electronics technicians, are currently being developed. In addition, new generations of the CIROS and FluidSIM simulation programs are attracting attention. The CIROS simulation program ranges from 3D simulation in education and training to the implementation of digital factories in industrial companies and real-time simulation in complex, virtual worlds. FluidSIM, on the other hand, is the world's leading circuit diagram design and simulation program for pneumatics, hydraulics and electronics. Targeted training courses round off the portfolio.