Lab Buddy System

Hands-on experience in the optics labs is a key part of our M.Sc. Photonics program. But how to teach hands-on experience to students who study remotely and thus do not have access to our labs?

Our approach here is the Lab Buddy System which is operating since 2021. It is a multi-camera conference system that connects two teams to work together: One team is the on-site students in the real-word lab while the other team is connected via the Lab Buddy System. The system essentially consists of a video conference meeting equipped with a large number of cameras – in our case PiCams – which provide various perspectives on the experimental setup. There is also a hands-free device that enables audio interaction regardless of the number of people present.

After finishing the lab course, students from both teams have gained experimental and team work experience. The teams are also expected to write a joint, scientific report on the experiment explaining and analysing the experimental results. Both the performance in the laboratory as well as the reports submitted are graded by the lab supervisors.