CTRL+Esc: An escape room on control engineering for the general public

Organiser

Steffi Knorn (Technical University, Berlin, Germany)

Sponsoring IFAC body

IFAC Technical Committee 9.4 - Education

Link

https://tc.ifac-control.org/9/4

Overview

The aim is to create in a fun, engaging and accessible way of learning about and being exposed to control engineering by developing a suitable “escape room” for the general public. Such an escape room consists of a set of puzzles, located in a room, in which participants enter and must solve the puzzles in order to leave the room again (or being released automatically after the maximal time has elapsed). Such formats are very popular and often attract tourists as well as locals.By framing a selected amount of simple / doable control problems in a puzzle format and combining them into an “escape room”, we believe that people who would otherwise not consider reading about control concepts, or are not particularly interested in STEM, might be compelled to solve puzzles in this somewhat unusual environment. By that, these people will be exposed to and learn about control; without needing any prior knowledge.