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Seminars

The task of a seminar is to teach, or to learn, skills that are indispensable for scientific work. Imperative for this is, first and foremost, to develop a thorough understanding of the field of research and the scientific literature through methods of literature search. Equally important is the ability to adequately impart the acquired knowledge, which takes the form of a written scientific paper and a presentation, for example.

The Institute for Man-Machine Interaction regularly organizes seminars on various topics in the areas of Computer Simulation and Visualization, Robotics, and Virtual Reality. The individual topics are supervised by research assistants who are active in that respective field of research. In many cases, these are current issues or questions that are subject of research and may open up space for further studies, perhaps as part of a Bachelor’s or Master’s thesis work.

RWTHonline

Seminar: Current Concepts and Trends in the Fields of Robotics and Simulation

Seminar: Man Machine Interaction Methods

Seminar on the Industrial Internship

Organization

The registration to a seminar takes place via RWTHonline. The registration is binding! In an introductory event in the first week of lectures, the topics to be assigned are presented to the students and opened for selection.

During the semester, individual meetings are scheduled with the respective supervisors of the research topics.

The end of the seminar course is marked by a block event which takes place approximately one week before the end of the semester. Therein, the topics covered are presented in a series of talks. The deadline for submission of the written elaborations will be set for around three weeks prior.

Literature Search

Building on the basic literature provided for each topic, participants should consult additional sources. How to find these sources is described in a Guide to Literature Search (see Seminar Materials).

Written Paper

A written elaboration of each of the covered topics serves to present the researched material in a well-founded manner. In the seminar, the LaTeX typesetting language is used for this purpose as is common practice in academic work. LaTeX offers clear advantages, such as an excellent print quality, easy representation of formulas, and high robustness. For seminars at MMI, the use of a specific style is mandatory to ensure that the works can be uniformly compiled in a seminar volume. The use of LaTeX and the required style are briefly described in a .pdf file (see Seminar Materials). The rules outlined there are obligatory. The corresponding source code, style file, as well as some tools for working with LaTeX can be found in the seminar materials and links below. The written elaboration should be between 12 and 15 pages in length.

Oral Presentation

The scientific presentation using PowerPoint is widely used and has almost entirely replaced traditional slide presentations due to its ability to incorporate animations and videos. For the presentations within the context of the seminar, a template is available in the ‘Seminar Materials’ below. A total of 20 minutes is allocated for the presentation and discussion, with the presentation itself being expected to last around 15 minutes.

Seminar Materials

Seminar Links

It should be noted that depending on the distribution, downloading a LaTeX installation can take a considerable amount of time. It is therefore recommended to use a fast internet connection, such as within the RWTH network. In the case of MikTeX, typically only the minimal installation is downloaded initially while additional packages are added later as needed, which keeps the installation time manageable. However, if you still prefer to use other distributions, this is something to be aware of. For instance, a full LaTeX installation via TeX Live can take several hours even with a fast internet connection.