These were handed over on Wednesday, December 22, 2021.
In 2019, students built LED Christmas trees from circuit boards, capacitors, transistors and LED lamps for the first time in a workshop at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology to donate them to the needy. The campaign organized by the IEEE SIGHT Germany Section was also implemented this year. The students soldered a total of 50 LED Christmas trees at the end of November. This time, the battery-operated Christmas trees benefited children in the flood victims' region around Mechernich.
"After we found out that there were still places in the flood areas that had to do without electricity, we wanted to do something so that families at least have some Christmas lights at Christmas," explains Birk Hattenhorst, Chairman of SIGHT Germany. Unlike two years ago, the LED trees were developed entirely as part of the "Humanitarian Technology" course in the ETIT master's degree. The trees were financed by the Germany section of the IEEE.
“Of course we support this SIGHT campaign. Next year we are planning to expand this soldering workshop, which originally started here at the RUB, to all of our student branches across Germany in order to bring this Christmas cheer to those in need from all over Germany," adds Dr. Christoph Baer, Vice-Chair of the organization IEEE Germany.
The distribution of the trees took place on Wednesday, December 22, 2021, via the "Wunschbaum" campaign of the Arbeiter-Samariter-Bund and the "Aktion Deutschland Hilft", an alliance of German aid organizations. Birk Hattenhorst and Christoph Baer drove to the flood region to distribute the trees to needy families.
WDR also reported on the campaign that day.
Archive:
The RUB article on the 2019 Christmas tree donation can be found at https://news.rub.de/studium/2019-11-28-weihnachtsbaeume-warum-man-fuer-einen-guten-zweck-das-loeten-lernt.
