01.08.2024

Matesy successfully supports young MINT-talents from Bavaria

With the help of Matesy GmbH, three students from Traunstein won the state competition at Jugend forscht.

As we mentioned in the last news article, the past six months felt like they were filled with a lot of trade fairs, conferences and trips. Nevertheless, alongside all these activities and our daily business, we managed to support a project that was extremely important to us as magnet specialists. We supported a group of students in their youth research project, where the students made some interesting discoveries. But long story short - the young researchers recently sent us a short report in which they themselves presented their work:

With the help of Matesy GmbH, three students from Traunstein won the state competition at Jugend forscht

With the help of Matesy GmbH, three students from Traunstein won the state competition at Jugend forscht.
Julia Mühlbacher (left), Anton Bernotat (center), Lena Keil (right)

Image rights: © Jugend forscht

It all started in December 2022, when students Anton Bernotat (center), Lena Keil (right) and Julia Mühlbacher (left) noticed that magnetic balls were rolling in strange paths. Since nothing could be found after extensive research, it quickly became clear that this needed to be investigated. Thus, the Jugend forscht project "Orbital deflections of rolling magnetic balls through the earth's magnetic field" was born, with which the trio competed for the first time in the regional competition in Rosenheim in 2023.

With the help of Matesy GmbH, three students from Traunstein won the state competition at Jugend forscht.
With the help of Matesy GmbH, three students from Traunstein won the state competition at Jugend forscht.

Through cooperation with Matesy GmbH in Jena, it was demonstrated for the first time that this novel effect can be explained by the earth's magnetic field. The group of students from Upper Bavaria was able to collect many results thanks to the excellent support from the company. They were provided with a 3-axis Helmholtz coil and other equipment.

With the help of Matesy GmbH, three students from Traunstein won the state competition at Jugend forscht.

Image rights: © Jugend forscht

Finally, the team was able to win both a regional and a state award with a second project in the field of physics. At the awards ceremony in the town hall in Landshut, the jury described the project as "unique" and "remarkable". The students not only observed, but they were also able to find a conclusive explanation based on the precession of a dipole in an external magnetic field.

(Text: Anton Bernotat, Julia Mühlbacher, Lena Keil)

We had a lot of fun working with the students and we are already looking forward to the next projects together with science-interested students. Special thanks go to our production manager, Heiko Berger, who supported the project so actively!