Anyone who has ever been to an outdoor pool knows how important it is to clean pools thoroughly. In the past, people might have been sent down there with a rag, but nowadays this is done by pelvic floor vacuums, small waterproof robots made of plastic and electronics that move back and forth tirelessly on the floor after closing time. The open-air swimming pool in Kaan-Marienborn has just such a machine, and one of its wheels was broken.
Lab manager Marios, Ms. Königsberg and Mr. Wagner from the city of Siegen, mayor Steffen Mues, operations manager Dirk Räwel and Jonas from Fab Lab, who built the wheel. Picture: City of Siegen
So we received an inquiry from the city’s sports and pools department asking if we could print something. The original manufacturer was no longer available and a new device would probably have blown the already tight corona budget. So Jonas and Marios took care of rebuilding the old wheel, first digitally and then printing it out in durable ABS. The mayor was also there and saw for himself that everything works – the application possibilities of Fab Lab Siegen are well received. So now spare wheels are no longer a problem and the robot is looking so confidently ahead, it has even taken on a part-time job at the indoor swimming pool at Löhrtor!
The hardworking robot ensures that the pool always looks nice and clean.
Thanks to Jonas’ good preparatory work, initial tests were able to start quickly.
The wheel had to be a perfect match for the old one, and bright red, of course.
In the last few weeks we have not only been fighting the Covid 19 pandemic with face visors from the Lab, but in parallel we have also tinkered a new website for you and the Lab. You are bathing your hands in it right now! Have fun clicking/touching and feel free to give feedback via the known channels or to .
For the impatient: At the very end of this post you will find an overview of what is new and what is still to come. For the others, here’s a short story about what we were thinking and what’s involved in such a website relaunch.
The following is a description of our “development process”. Not much was programmed, but it was put together. And that also wants to be done!
The Development Process
First of all, we had a workshop a few weeks ago to find out in which direction the new website should point. Everything we wanted to have on the new website and who we want to reach with it and how. To do this, we asked ourselves the following questions:
What information do we want on the website?
Who do we want to reach?
What could the website look like?
How do we want to file the information?
Steamed workshop mindmap
The result is a website based on the blog software WordPress. This seemed to make the most sense to us in terms of functionality and extensibility with plugins. Using WordPress wasn’t new territory for some of the team either, and we had about an idea of what we could accomplish with WordPress. Our requirements were met:
Software that is regularly updated so that everything is as secure as possible.
Automated display of events in the Lab
Image galleries to present the lab also virtually
Automated viewing of research results (A list of publications that have been produced as part of the Lab).
Easy contact
Easy editing of the content by the Lab team
Writing of contributions, for example project reports by the community
The social component: Visitors should be able to comment on posts and easily get in touch with us
Multilingualism
Data protection compliance
Team Coordination During These Times
First of all, we started to form a team to build up the website piece by piece. We transferred existing content to the new website, created a menu structure and designed the homepage.
Kanban
We organized ourselves in a Kanban board (there are many online solutions, take the one that suits you best). We met online audio-visually every day when things got hot, due to corona, and exchanged information about the current tasks. From time to time, a split screen was also used. It has been shown that it is a good idea to make the Kanban board visible to everyone by means of a split screen, so that everyone also knows which task card or ticket is currently being discussed. The cards documented the current developments within a task and stored images or documents. Thus, a documentation of the development was created at the same time.
The 80/20-20/80-Syndrom
As was to be expected, the 80/20 rule also struck us, which one or the other is surely familiar with. 80 percent of the work is done in 20 percent of the time. The last 20 percent then take 80 percent of the time. When you think you’ve got it, that’s when it really starts.
The contents were transferred relatively quickly. But then it was on to finding plugins for calendar integration, image galleries, and privacy compliance, as well as checking content for currency and expanding it. And everything has to be put together somehow, so that the page structure makes sense to visitors and information can be found easily. Where do you write the opening hours everywhere so that everyone can find them?
“But they’re already on the menu under opening hours, aren’t they?!”
Yes, but…. sometimes that’s not enough. So we have made an effort to sort the information as it seemed to make sense to us. We have already done a few user tests, but we are also a bit dependent on your help. Write us, talk to us, tell us if you can’t find something or if something bothers you. That helps enormously! ->
The current version offers little that is new, at least apparently. So you could also say: old wine in new wineskins.
