Creative Minds 2025: BARTEC Promotes Young STEM Talent in the Region

The final event of “Kreative Köpfe” took place in Bad Mergentheim on May 19. The student teams, supervised by BARTEC mentors, once again achieved outstanding placements

For more than two decades, the “Creative Minds” ideas competition has been motivating schoolchildren to follow their spirit of invention and discovery. Young students between the ages of 13 and 18 who are enthusiastic about the STEM subjects (mathematics, computer science, natural sciences, technology) can take part in the competition organized by the “Junge Kreative Köpfe” foundation. They are supported by experts from local companies to put their ideas into practice.

BARTEC has been a partner company from the very beginning and has once again supported three projects for this year's 22nd anniversary. At the award ceremony in the kursaal, Udo Glatthaar, Mayor of Bad Mergentheim, paid tribute to the young inventors for their special inventive spirit, which should be seen as an important basis for the future economic success of local companies. The STEM subjects in particular need extra support and attention. The goal of “Creative Minds” is to ignite a passion for discovery and innovation in schoolchildren and to get them excited about technology and science.

Three projects were supported by our experts from BARTEC, and all three received an excellent ranking!

BARTEC CEO Dr. Martin U. Schefter is delighted with the special commitment of the BARTEC mentors and their great placings: “Our colleagues once again gave the students excellent support and guided them with their expertise in the implementation of their creative ideas. I would like to express my sincere thanks for this commitment! The excellent results that were achieved are the reward for this extraordinary commitment!''

Mona Menikheim, Ilaria Ghidelli and Lena Knebel invented the “Moving Cup”. They were supported by two companies: Wittenstein SE and BARTEC under the direction of our colleague Mirco Hohstadt. The “Moving Cup” is placed on a classic Carrera track and can be used at running competitions to allow runners to drink water at the refreshment point without spilling. “At the beginning, it wasn't easy to find a suitable basis for our project. Our project partner Wittenstein SE took on mechanical implementation, particularly the development of the holding device for drinking cups on the vehicles. Our responsibility lay in electronics - especially in the programming and control of the racetrack, which played a central role in our project,” reports Mirco Hohstadt. Mona, Ilaria and Lena won 1st place in the “Innovation & Creativity” category with this innovation.

Malia Model, Anika Müller and Laurentia Lorenz from Weikersheim Grammar School came up with the idea for an automatic badminton counter that counts the points automatically. The two inventors developed a particularly clever solution under the guidance of Thomas Lede from BARTEC.

“The challenge of the badminton counter project was to convert a commercially available badminton so that a microcontroller module with a gyro sensor could be integrated to record the acceleration and impact behavior. The students had no previous knowledge of electronics or programming - so it was all the better to be able to accompany and support them step by step with our technical expertise,” says mentor Thomas Lede, Hardware Engineer Electronics R&D BU EM.

With this idea, Malia, Anika and Laurentia won 2nd place in the competition in the “Innovation & Creativity” category.

Roman Ehrmann from Weikersheim Grammar School has invented the “Bicycle light of the future”. He was supported by Julia Klein, Viktor Taran and Jochen Tessmer from BARTEC.

His idea was to design a bicycle light that automatically dims the light when oncoming traffic is detected. Viktor Taran, Software Developer BU EHT, summarizes the result: “The biggest challenge was to calibrate the light sensor so that it reacts reliably to oncoming vehicles - and the light does not flicker. Thanks to our technical support in the selection and integration of the sensor technology, we were able to make a decisive contribution to the student project.”

With this great innovation, Roman Ehrmann secured 3rd place in the category: “Technical realization”.

Congratulations to all the students who took part in this competition!