Technology you can touch, technology you can participate in – that’s the motto of the IdeenExpo and Götting KG is presenting two electric scooters to match: one that can be controlled by visitors and one that drives completely automatically. In a playful competition, visitors can test their driving skills against those of the driverless scooter on a marked-out circuit. Two visitors compete against each other, one drives the manually operated scooter, one takes a seat on the driverless vehicle, and after a few laps they swap places. The aim is to complete the course faster than the automatic scooter, if possible, without knocking over the boundary cones.

It quickly becomes clear to all test riders that this is not so easy, as the driverless scooter demonstrates the advantages of its lane guidance using a guide wire by completing one lap after another with absolute precision and without tiring. This lane guidance technology uses a wire laid in the ground through which a current flows. An antenna attached to the vehicle measures the magnetic fields that build up around the wire and detects whether it is directly above or next to the guide wire. As soon as the antenna is no longer directly above the wire, it tells the vehicle in which direction to steer.