We are very excited to share today’s 2021 wrap-up which is dedicated to Malik Piara, #NextGeneration Product Management student.

This semester Malik decided to focus on philosophy and social psychology, believing product management and leading a company narrow down to decision-making. Malik is currently learning and absorbing everything from Aristotle and is working on the 5 Science, Technology, and Society (STS) modules. Malik’s free time is mostly spent writing on Moonwith. Moonwith is Malik’s blog about emotional intelligence and decision-making and building Earnest: cards for deeper conversations.

What are you doing next?

I want to work on startup mentoring program anyone in Portugal can have access to, regardless of the city they live in, their connections or their income. I’m also currently planning ‘Fingerprint’, a conference for people who want to build the future. On my free time, I’ll keep honing software engineering skills and building new products every Sunday.

A moment I almost lost hope…
Having to close Upframe after 5 years of work and after already having moved to Lisbon and sold some of my things to keep the boat afloat was rock bottom. I couldn’t leave my bed for a week.

My biggest challenge this year/semester;
Keeping my mental health in check and realising the startup life is not everything. It’s okay to take breaks. And there are other paths that can be equated with success. Overworking should not be glorified.

My greatest success…
One year ago I didn’t know Python, Flask or NoSQL. I had never built an app before. This year I worked on 4 apps and I launched a job board for startups in Portugal which is helping people every day. I’m so proud and I would not believe that would be possible if you told me. You can learn anything. I truly believe in that.

I’m proud of myself because… 
I’m proud to have taken steps towards improving myself and letting go of my unhealthy obsession with work. This included seeking a coach, a therapist and a personal trainer that are here to keep me balanced. I know most people cannot afford this and I feel incredibly fortunate.

People that really helped me this year…
Ben Bachem, Jonathan Freiberger, Moritz Eich, Hanno Grimm, Teodora Trposka, Johann Hemmann, Dennis Willmann and Lukas Müller kept me sane while I felt alone in Lisbon. And they helped accelerate my learning. That’s one of the things I love about CODE. I’m smiling thinking about how many people are there for me and with whom I can learn anything I want faster than I could ever before.

 

AULIOS – We envision a world where light is so powerful that it improves people’s lives in a useful, emotional, and healthy way daily.

What is AULIOS?

We started in January 2021 as a CODE project and an worked during the semester most of the time as a team of 6 to 8 people on creating a software to create music based light shows fully automized. Our motivation was the fact that we thought and now know that it is possible and that lightshows in the whole entertainment industry are still done manually. That means instead of light technicians and lightjokkeys preparing or controlling the lights on festivals, concerts and clubs manually, our b2b customers will just subscribe our software to manage everything by itself.

During the semester we built our first working prototypes and are currently working on our MVP. In the process we realized that we underestimated the possibilities of our project and are now talking with companies like Berlin Green, Ligeo and Porsche about cooperations in other fields as well.

We worked through the whole summer to found the company and prepare ourselves to get in our first revenue and now is the time, where we need to grow our team.

There were several times, where we were not sure if what we do makes sense. It is difficult when you do something no one else has successfully done before, but we never gave up and carry on working.

Our biggest challenge this year/semester…

I wouldn´t say there was one specific challenge. We had one goal: Create the first working version of AULIOS which can run in a nightclub and looks good and we will probably reach this state in around three weeks. The complexity and amount of challenges along the way made it a bit stressful sometimes, but also held a lot of fun while solving.

Our greatest success…

Alex Gerick and I were proud that we managed to onboard and work with a team of a size of 10 people. This was challenging and new for us, but it is pretty nice to see that you can inspire others to believe and work on the same vision, even when you have no money to offer.

Our biggest project f****up & what are we proud of ourselves for…

There are a lot of things. The one time I felt really bad was, when I prepared a hybrid (half remote, half on-campus) workshop about our MVP features, but there was a huge problem with the microphones and speaker of everyone and some team members had no access to certain documents, which were necessary to do that workshop properly. We wasted one hour when I canceled the workshop. I felt pretty bad and responsible for it, but we reflected directly afterward and discussed all aspects of the MVP with the people on campus and also managed to run a second attempt a few days later and everything worked, thanks to better preparation. It was a pretty uncomfortable situation for me, but we managed to learn and do it better the second time and I think learning from mistakes instead of giving up is one of the most vital skills for everyone who wants to achieve something.

If it weren’t for CODE…

We would not have the workspace to properly work on AULIOS. We would not have been able to build such a great team to build our software and we would not have gotten the contacts to come as far as we are right now. CODE was and is a pretty good catalyst for our project to succeed.

A person or people that helped us this year with AULIOS…

There are quite a lot of people. To mention a few, there is the whole AULIOS team. Also, Tamas Fulop (Campus Manager) and Wanda Dominguez (Campus & Office Coordinator) helped us a lot of times because we always need something and they were there to get it for us. Also, Chris Bonau Schmidt (Product Management Professor), Peter Ruppel (CODE Vice President & Software Engineering Professor), and Daniel Buzzo (Interaction Design Professor) helped us, whenever we need help. A specific movement that goes on and forth and repeats itself over and over.

Another exciting update from AULIOS;

AULIOS alpha test run was successful and in the beginning of 2022 we will make sure to finish AULIOS v.1.0 until the end of march which then will be implemented officially to the first clubs!

Check out the AULIOS website to find out more!

Today’s 2021 WRAP-UP is from Cássia Nunes, Fourth Dimension Interaction Design student. Cássia is going into her fourth semester at CODE, having studied fashion design and consumer behaviour prior to moving into UX/UI, Cássia spent the last semester working on a project called Talkgirl.

What is Talkgirl?

Talkgirl is a learning platform/app formed by girls for girls. Learning and practice English conversations can be a challenge for most Brazilian girls and women for different reasons, such as financial, cultural, and geographic limitations. Most of the tech-based solutions available to practice online conversations available nowadays like (Tandem and Linguado) are not prepared to deal with an “inconvenience”: online dating fishing.

From learning platforms to bank apps, people can change the meaning and the objectives of an online service and end up using it as a dating app. In this scenario, practicing English conversation turned into an adventure for women. Trying to solve this problem, Talkgirl appears as a learning platform based on female volunteering (no-profit organization) focused on Brazilian young girls and women. Native English speakers from female sex/gender or women with advanced English skills can help other women to develop English conversation skills. We aim to be more than a connection platform, it will have learning journey guides and other features focused on the learning experience.

So, my idea was to create this female-friendly space based on volunteer work where we can help each other. The project still in a very very raw level and I’ve a lot to figure out (and I’m happy to receive feedback on that).

My biggest challenge this year/semester… 

Time management. This was the semester that I got a student work position and I had a lot to learn about that.

A person that really helped me this year with my project… 

Natalía Papadopoúlou (Senior Interaction Design Lecturer) has been an amazing sponsor and made me recover the motivation to keep going with that.

We’re starting the week with another Exchange WRAP-UP!

We’re wrapping up with Ingvild Therkelsen, an Interaction Design student from our Partner University, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, located in Gjøvik. Ingvild spent the semester with us here in Berlin. 

Ingvild is in her final semesters to obtain a Bachelor of Arts in Interaction Design. Next semester Ingvild has chosen to stay in Berlin and write her Bachelor thesis at CODE. Then do a Master’s at another university in Norway. 

Just a reminder of how all of these exchanges have been possible: 

Earlier this year, we were awarded the Erasmus Charter for Higher Education 2021-2027, a prerequisite to participate in ERASMUS programs and projects. We were also allotted PROMOS grants to support students’ stays abroad and study trips outside ERASMUS fundings. Thanks to the funding and our incredible International Office team, the NTNU exchanges & more to come are possible. 

My biggest challenge…

was to finish six ID modules, be part of a CODE-project, and still be able to experience Berlin.

My greatest success…

was that I handed in all the projects for my modules by the 29th of November.

My biggest project f***up…

was to have too high ambitions for what I could be able to finish in time for multiple projects, so I wasn’t able to deliver the quality of work I would like.

If it weren’t for CODE…

I would not have worked with such a famous company as Porsche.

 

We’re wrapping up this week with Jan Neumann, Third Party Software Engineering student.

Jan has spent the last year working on some really cool projects, and we’re excited to show you some of the work he’s done. This semester, Jan focused more on learning and having fun with different projects. He’s currently working on some personal projects, mostly on hardware/embedded and prototype development. He’s currently not in Berlin, but plans to return next semester to continue with his projects on campus (hopefully soon).

My biggest challenge this year/semester…

Sticking to one thing and finishing it. Also german bureaucracy/authorities are a real challenge.

My greatest success…

I built a device to visualise WiFi signals. When Hackaday.com wrote about it it gained some traction and I met some cool people from the networking industry which resulted in new projects again.

Proud of yourself because I…

Worked myself into electronics for the past years and was finally able to get some ideas I had for some time running and professionally manufactured. I find it fascinating how one can learn most things just by doing and trying!

Here are some of the projects Jan worked on over the last months;

Measuring the speed of light with an oscilloscope, a laser and a telescope. (Has not worked 100%)

Webcam in a bird box

Solid state anemometer

Building an anemometer that has no moving parts using load cells.

Force feedback servo motor

Adding position and force feedback to a standard model servo motor.

Laser engraving grains of rice with a DIY laser engraver

Building a laser engraver that has a resolution high enough to engrave my name into grain of rice.

Installing a solar roof and building a real time power logger

I built a 1kW solar array and added real time power logging to keep track of production and consumption.

 

3D depth mapping our harbour

I was stranded in the harbour because I didn’t know of the low water depth. So I built this mapping thing to create a (true) depth map of our harbour.

What grounding in ht harbour looks like:

3D WiFi strength mapping

Here I built a machine to visualise how wifi spreads in 3D. The pattern is interesting as it has a feature distance of one wavelength go 2.4 GHz Wifi (12cm).

Ethernet stepper motor controller (ongoing project)

I built a network connected stepper motor driver that takes json instructions via UDP and translates them into motion. All the position feedback, homing functions, etc. (Github)

The revenue clock

Actually a birthday present I build for my grandpa. He wanted to get involved in crypto but doesn’t feel confident using a web browser. So I bought him some and now he can watch the revenue change. It is WiFi connected and fetches crypto prices and time from the internet.

Some exciting mentions of Jan’s work can also be found here;

Jan Neumann created this small, low-cost logging device with an Arduino and an echo sounder to collect water depth data: https://t.co/VTUIDmnT9f pic.twitter.com/06R3U0Khwh

— Arduino (@arduino) September 7, 2021

Dan Maloney wrote about Visualising WiFi & Homebrew Sounder Maps on Hackaday.com

The Arduino Team wrote about Jan’s DIY 3D water depth mapping on Arduino.cc 

We’re always excited when students & faculty come together to work on projects! This 2021 WRAP-UP is from our Artificial Intelligence Senior Lecturer, Florencia Noriega, and #FourthDimension Software Engineering student Caleb Apronti. 

Florencia & Caleb spent the semester working on a project on Bird sound recognition – error analysis of a deployed model. 

With bird recognition apps such as Warblr (UK) or Merlin (USA), people can use their smartphones to identify birds from their sounds. Bird identification is based on deployed machine learning classifiers that take recordings and return the name of the most likely bird. But how confident are we in the predictions of these models? This project evaluates a model’s predictions trained to detect the distinctive Blackbird calls. 

This project collaborates with Assoc. Prof. Dan Stowell for the Department of Cognitive Science and Artificial Intelligence, Tilburg University, the Netherlands. It will help prepare for an upcoming citizen science project to detect blackbirds and discover when and where they sing. For example: do they sing earlier in cities than in the countryside? Your contribution will be to evaluate the automatic detection and establish whether it is reliable in different conditions, with various smartphones, at other times of the day. We will primarily use data submitted to the Warblr app: tens of thousands of data points.

Our biggest challenge this year/semester…

My work this semester was part of a big, complex project that combines bioacoustics (the study of animal sounds), citizen science, machine learning, among others. The biggest challenge was to understand my specific role in this big problem well enough to break it down into manageable bits I can work on.

A moment we almost lost hope… 

I struggled with some health (or personal) issues, but now I’m getting professional support.

Our greatest success…

Creating the first prototype for an annotation tool that can support bioacoustics research while learning software engineering skills. Mainly how to use PostgreSQL and Flask for audio data, playing sounds and displaying spectrograms.

If it weren’t for CODE… 

Absolutely, without CODE’s project-based learning concept, it would not have been possible to find the time to work and solve the challenges of this project while studying on the side. Beyond time, the CODE ecosystem is very supportive to project work. More specifically, the project requirements fit well into curricula (modules). Moreover, CODE’s community -faculty and students- are always ready to help. How to plot a spectrogram with Python, and how to structure and manage the database were some of the questions I faced with this project and received support from the community. Finally, I want to thank Dan Stowell, Alberto García Arroba Parrilla and Florencia Noriega, with who I had the chance to work on this project.

A person or people that really helped us this year with my project…

This is a project would not have been possible without Dan Stowell, Professor of Biodiversity & AI, at Tilburg University and Naturalis Biodiversity Centre in the Netherlands, who initiated the projects and kindly provided us with the data to work with.

Today’s 2021 wrap-up is dedicated to Sarah Faber, #NextGeneration Product Management student.

Sarah has been an active part of the CODE Community and was significantly involved in organizing unicon – hosted at CODE in 2019 as Head of Speakers.

Sarah currently works for BUNCH, the AI leadership coach on a mission to help anyone become a great leader.

BUNCH enables you to overcome everyday leadership challenges with personalized 2-minute leadership tips – all in the format of a sleek, intuitive app. They don’t use titles, so Sarah’s role would be the equivalent of a Technical Product Manager. She mostly focuses on Delivery and less on Discovery.

If it weren’t for CODE…

“Today I am very proud of my self-management skills that allow me to perform well for and with my team as well as take care of my health and happiness. The project-based CODE curriculum which can only be run with determination and discipline gave me the vision I needed to stay motivated and the complex obstacles I needed to learn fast and smart.”

My biggest challenge this year…

“Was starting in a high-performing team that required me to adapt quickly and deliver quality. A very mission-driven team always comes with a variety of interpersonal challenges that I believe CODE prepared me for a lot! Matching the team’s wisdom with my foundation from CODE allowed me to become a better leader myself.”

RemNote – The first smart note-taking tool.

What is RemNote?

RemNote aspires to reinvent how we learn, think, and collaborate. We’re building an all-in-one thinking and learning workspace to help individuals and teams organize their thinking, master their craft, and grow their knowledge.

We’re a MIT-born startup that grew out of frustrations with existing learning and knowledge-management tools. As students and researchers, we had become increasingly aware of how little we remembered after reading an article or completing a course. We were also frustrated with how hard it was to keep our thoughts, research, and projects organized. We needed a tool to streamline our thinking, connect ideas, and optimize our learning for the long term.

RemNote is that tool — an all-in-one workspace that supercharges your work, thinking, and learning.

Moritz Wallawitsch, Third Party Software Engineering student and CPO/CO-Founder of RemNote tells us about his 2021 wrap-up;

Our biggest challenge this year/semester

“We greatly underestimated the time and effort of outbound sourcing and selling to get great candidates.”

Proud of myself because I…

“I’m proud of helping to build a profitable fast-growing SaaS company that makes the life of hundreds of thousands of students, professionals, and researchers easier. By building a new evolution of tools for knowledge creation, we’re accelerating scientific and technological progress.”

A person or people that really helped me this year with RemNote…

“Lennard Schmidt, among others, was a great help. He has an incredible network and introduced us to some of Europe’s best investors. I think Lennard joining the leadership team is one of the best things that happened to CODE recently.”

To find out more about RemNote, Moritz, Co-Founder Martin Schneider & the team, visit remote.com.

 

This year, Marie finished her Bachelor of Arts in Interaction Design at CODE.

During her studies, she worked as a UX/UI working student for MBition, doing user research, among other things, for the current Mercedes Me App.

My biggest challenge this year…
“Learning to navigate through a 40/h-work-week. It’s tough he.”

My greatest success…
“Graduating from CODE. Whoop whoop.”

My biggest project f*** up…
“To be honest, retrospectively, I’d do everything differently. Not because the projects were “f*** ups” more because “now I know better.””

Proud of myself because…
“I finally put together a proper portfolio with the work that I did throughout my studies. Have a look here.”

If it weren’t for CODE… 
“I wouldn’t have met some of my closest friends, which are the real lifesavers. :-)”

People that really helped me this year…
“Pras Gunasekera (Senior Interaction Design Lecturer) & Julia Zielke (Former STS Lecturer) supervised my capstone project & taught me about inclusive & sustainable design practices.”

Marie is now working as a junior product designer at SinnerSchrader Swipe, part of Accenture Interactive, and is curious to see what will happen next.