© Stiftung Jugend forscht

This year, Mauritz Fethke (15) was awarded the "Prize for a work in the field of robotics". He constructed an elephant's trunk based on nature, the core of which consists of stacked segments. They could be tilted pneumatically in any direction. To do this, Fethke mounted three steering collars airtight on a thin aluminum plate. They function like an accordion, with the air supply being individually regulated by a compressor, vacuum pump and solenoid valves. The young researcher was inspired by the strut construction of a fish fin for his first designs of a gripper that is linked to the trunk.