© Stiftung Jugend forscht

This year's prize for work in the field of robotics goes to Mauritz Fethke (16). For his development, he took the elephant's trunk with its 40,000 muscles as a model. He constructed an artificial trunk. Its base is a kind of corrugated tube that is mounted on a chassis and moves with the help of compressed air. At the tip of the trunk is a gripper that is opened and closed using an air cushion. It is controlled by a mini computer that can be operated using a standard tablet computer. In a further expansion stage, Fethke is planning a combination of sensors and cameras. This should enable the artificial trunk to operate completely autonomously. His vision: an 'elephant robot' that relieves humans of some tedious tasks.