EU STEM Forum for the Next Generation
September 23 – October 4, 2026
Germany and Sweden
Do you love asking "how does that work?" Join us to explore science, technology, engineering, and math, meet curious people from other countries, and take part in an adventure you will not forget.
This autumn, we are organizing an STEM forum for youth: twelve days across EU countries.
This year's theme: Positioning and Navigation. How does a device determine its location? The forum approaches this question through two fundamentally different methods and examines why each succeeds or fails.
The first is absolute positioning, the principle behind satellite navigation systems such as GPS. Participants will study trilateration, derive position from distance measurements to known reference points, and carry out their own field measurements. From this data they will analyse measurement error, apply statistical methods including least squares estimation, and explore how real systems account for clock errors and relativistic effects.
The second is inertial navigation, in which a device estimates its position from its own motion alone. Participants will program an Arduino with accelerometer and gyroscope sensors, implement orientation tracking and sensor filtering, and conduct experiments to measure how errors accumulate over time. The forum concludes by examining sensor fusion: how modern navigation systems combine both approaches to achieve results neither could reach alone.
Participants will present their own research project to an international audience of students, teachers and guests. Communicating scientific work clearly to listeners from different backgrounds is an essential skill for any future researcher, and the forum provides a supportive setting in which to develop it.
During the forum, participants will have the opportunity to:
- Attend classes in mathematics, science, and technology
- Present their own research project to an international audience
- Study the mathematics and physics of satellite navigation
- Program sensor-based navigation systems with Arduino and analyse their accuracy
- Explore AI (Artificial Intelligence) and IoT (Internet of Things)
- Develop critical thinking, problem-solving, analytical, programming, and communication skills
- Apply acquired knowledge to real-world scenarios
- Work on team projects
- Share knowledge and culture with other participants
