Computer Science Day: Cats and Artificial Intelligence
2026-09-17 From AI to virtual influencers: 84 students from nine schools came to Leuphana for the 14th Computer Science Day.
How does AI actually tell the difference between cats and dogs? Why can a robot walk? And what does a new rapper use to build his website? At Computer Science Day, participants programmed, experimented, and tinkered. Participants in the AI workshop first explored the characteristics of pets. Then they examined handwritten numbers: “The images used consist of 28 × 28 pixels—for a total of 784 individual pixels. Each pixel is processed by the model as an input value. Using various parameters, the model learns to distinguish between different digits,” explained Maximilian Reinhardt and Shirley Metz. Both are research assistants in the Department of Business Informatics, specializing in machine learning, and led the AI workshop.
The students put their heads together and programmed their own image recognition system using Python. The key insight here: As fast as generative AI systems may seem to work, the computational power behind them is complex. In other workshops, the students got to try their hand at controlling a robot—and learn how it might one day even take over their homework. The HTML group programmed a website featuring a rap lyric.
In addition, the students were challenged in a small competition to develop a virtual influencer—entirely without using any technology. The group with the health theme won. “Working with the students shows me time and again how closely computer science and creativity are now intertwined,” says organizer Stefanos Dimitriadis from Leuphana.
All the students signed up for this workshop voluntarily: “AI is everywhere these days. For me, the day at the university was well worth it—even if I still have to catch up on the material I missed,” says a high school senior.