The abbreviation CMS stands for the TUBAF Master's degree programme in Computational Materials Science. And as such, it has nothing to do with the Hollywood film factory. Nevertheless, the last session of the "Personal Programming Project" (PPP) module had some echoes of the ceremonial presentation of the famous Academy Awards. The props: four envelopes with the winners' names, an enthusiastic presenter and a drum kit. Professor Bernhard Eidel, who runs the seminar, explains the background to the ceremony that honoured the work of four students.
Drum roll, the envelope is opened, "and the winner is... Prawinkumar Ananthan!". In the lecture theatre, Professor Bernhard Eidel presents the Master's student with a certificate for his outstanding work entitled "A python implementation of Cahn-Hilliard phase field equation for topology optimization with FEniCSx". Applause from the audience follows. Unlike at a film award ceremony, Prawinkumar Ananthan did not give an acceptance speech, but a presentation about his work and had to answer critical questions from the audience.
Why this ceremony? "I would find it rather shabby to hand out the certificate to the honourees in my office," explains Professor Bernhard Eidel, Dean of the CMS degree programme, who is acting as moderator and master of ceremonies on this day. Such events also promote communication between the semesters. Many in the audience were first-semester students who, through this ceremony, learnt "what topics there are, especially at our Institute of Mechanics and Fluid Dynamics (IMFD), and what great things can come out of it."
The PPP Excellence Award has a long tradition in the CMS degree programme and has been awarded since 2019. The PPP module was upgraded from 7 ECTS credits to 12 ECTS credits with the reform of the degree programme in October 2024, says Professor Eidel: "In view of the effort students invest in the module, this was long overdue. As I supervise PPPs myself - there were three last summer semester - I know that students do put in a lot of work."
In addition to Prawinkumar Ananthan, Pradeep Periyasamy, Rahul Vishnu Narkhede and Aagashram Neelakandan were also awarded on this day.