With our Pre-University STEM program, through interactive workshops and final competition, students learn to work in a team, exchange ideas, learn to quickly identify and solve a problem and contribute to the final result - the practical implementation of the project. The program is realized in cooperation with the local STEM institutions (University of Nis, Faculty of Electronic Engineering (FEE-UNI), The Center for the Promotion of Science (CPS), Science clubs in Nis and Leskovac).

01. The meeting of the Organizing team

05. 04. 2022. On Tuesday, April 05, 2022, the first meeting of organizing team was scheduled at the Faculty of Electronic Engineering. It was decided to start the workshops and the implementation of the project earlier to better promote the faculty and the STEM project when students have less obligations at school. A comprehensive division of employment and responsibilities has been established. Also, reviewed were the work plan and objectives. Consideration was given to the logistics of carrying out all project activities.

02. The secondary schools were contacted for taking part in STEM project

06. 04. - 08. 04. 2022. From Wednesday, April 06, to Friday, April 08, 2022, the principals of the high schools were contacted. The following five high schools were contacted regarding a possible collaboration: Electrical engineering school “Mija Stanimirovic” Niš, Electrical Engineering School "Nikola Tesla" Niš, Grammar school “Bora Stankovic” Niš, Grammar school “Svetozar Markovic”, Technical school “Rade Metalac” Leskovac and Technical school from Vlasotince. The schools were provided with the project plan.

03. Technology 'n' Trends Conference

08. 04. - 09. 04. 2022. This year, on April 8 and 9, 2022, the Student Innovation Center of the Faculty of Electronic Engineering Niš (SICEF) hosted the tenth Technology 'n' Trends (T'n'T) conference in the Science and Technology Park Niš. This year's conference focused on modern Web technologies and the Internet of Things (IoT). IEEE SB Niš chair Miloš Marjanović delivered a talk on IoT at the IEEESTEC conference, which inspired students. The conference and published IoT projects were presented to encourage attendees to submit their IEEESTEC proposal this year.

04. Workshop for professors

On April 11, 2022, the Faculty of Electronic Engineering welcomed Ivana Bogdanović and Bojan Stanković, lecturers of ETS "Mija Stanimirović" in Niš. The two-hour workshop focused on the use of the Arduino platform in practical classes. Miloš Marjanović and Nikola Mitrović were the workshop's leaders. The workshop organizers are members of IEEE SB Niš. The goal of the course was to transfer the skills learned at the workshop to students during regular classes.

05. The principals have appointed teachers

14. 04. 2022. On Thursday, April 14, 2022, principals selected teachers to assist in the implementation of a part of the program in schools. The idea was presented to these teachers and students who were interested. The concept of education is elucidated, along with the benefits of further training and activities in such programs.

06. Workshop for high school students from Mija Stanimirović

19. 04. 2022. Eleven students from this institution attended the Faculty of Electronic Engineering. In addition to learning more about the faculty they wish to enroll in, participants had the opportunity to participate in an Arduino workshop and develop their practical knowledge in this way. After the workshop, students engaged in a quiz. The top performers were Aleksa Mladenović, Aleksa Mitić, and Luka Miljković. They advanced to the final stage of the quiz alongside students from other high schools from Niš, who will visit the faculty in the following weeks. The workshop with ET "Mija Stanimirović" students was directed by Nikola Mitrović, Jana Vračar, and Neda Stanojević.

07. Career day in Vlasotince

On Friday, May 13, 2022, a Career Day in Vlasotince was held for students of the high schools from Vlasotince. The main goal of the event is the promotion of further education and employment through: Informing eighth-grade elementary school students about the educational profiles it offers Technical school; Informing adults about the process of recognition of prior learning (PPU) in the framework informal adult education, for which the Technical School is accredited; Informing students of the final grades of high school about the possibilities of continuation education at colleges and universities; and Informing unemployed persons about companies as potential employers.
Special attention is devoted to STEM projects and their importance for high school students. "Let STEM visit again IEEESTEC" project is presented as well as IEEESTEC Conference. About 500 participants visited the event. Many of those participants have already attended IEEE workshops during this and previous years at the Faculty of Electronic Engineering in Niš and at the Technical School in Vlasotince.

08. Workshop for high school students from Bora Stanković Niš

26. 05. 2022. On Tuesday, April 26, students from Bora Stanković Niš High School's special IT department visited the Faculty of Electronic Engineering. At the welcome with the vice dean, the students were given information about our faculty's courses and the entrance assessment. After that, an Arduino workshop was arranged, during which students had the opportunity to construct a working prototype of a system for measuring room illumination. Students learned through this practice that hardware and software always go together. They participated in the quiz at the end of the workshop, with Slavko Rančić, Radoš Jovanović, and Gavrilo Milenković achieving the highest scores. The Faculty and IEEE SB Niš provided prizes for the top quiz participants. Prof. Dr. Emilija Živanović, Miloš Marjanović, and Nikola Mitrović from IEEE SB Niš led the workshop.

09. Workshop for high school students from Svetozar Marković Niš

09. 05. 2022. On Monday, May 9th, a workshop was held at the Faculty of Electronic Engineering in Niš for third-grade students from the physics department of the "Svetozar Marković" high school in Niš. Using Arduino and sensor modules, the students created basic systems for detecting the distance and rate of ionizing radiation. The objective of the workshop was for students to see how interesting is to combining hardware and software to create a simple electronic system. The workshop was organized in order to promote new STEM project “Let STEM visit again IEEESTEC”. At the conclusion of the workshop, the students participated in a quiz, with Dimitrije Stojić, Mihailo Pavlović, and Bogdan Vucetić achieving the highest scores. Prof. Dr. Goran Ristić, Miloš Marjanović, Nikola Mitrović, and Aleksandra Stojković from IEEE SB Niš carried out the workshop.

10. Lectures and quiz

24. 05. 2022. On Tuesday, May 24th new workshop was organized at the Faculty of Electronic Engineering Niš. Prof. dr. Danijel Danković presented a talk where the diodes were the topic, while Prof. dr. Goran Ristić spoke on ionizing and non-ionizing radiation. Students came from high schools Mija Stanimirović Niš, Nikola Tesla Niš, Svetozar Marković Niš and the Technical High School from Vlasotice. They participated in the workshop and after that, the quiz was organized. Students who provided the best results were awarded. Part of the students had the opportunity to visit the Mechatronics Laboratory and the Science-Technology Park. In organizing this event participated Assoc. Dr. Emilija Živanović, Miloš Marjanović, Jana Vračar, Neda Stanojević and Marija Živković.

11. Promotion

24. 05 – 27. 05. 2022. From the 24th of May to the 27th of May, Nikola Mitrović from IEEE SB Niš introduced the Faculty of Electronic Engineering and STEM project at the 64th International Exhibition of Technics and Technical Achievements in Belgrade. Numerous fair attendees had the opportunity to see numerous systems created by the faculty and high school students who attended STEM workshops. Systems were realized using development environments like Arduino, Raspberry, and ARM. Also, demonstrated were retractor systems, a display comparison board, and an LED lighting solution. In addition, a special exhibit on radiation was given, in which visitors could examine and use a Geiger counter created by students of the Department of Microelectronics.

12. Workshop in Science Center

27. 05. 2022. On Sunday, May 29, 2022, participants of the electronics course met at the Petnica Science Center for an Arduino and Nucleo workshop. Twenty seminar attendees collaborated with IEEE SB Niš Miloš Marjanović, Jana Vračar, and Neda Stanojević. During this all-day program, the participants explored the fundamentals of microcontrollers and completed various practical activities. The participants spent the night studying the capabilities of microcontroller platforms at the Petnica laboratories.

13. Workshop at the High school "Rade Metalac" in Leskovac

09. 06. 2022. On Thursday, June 9, 2022, students of the third grade at the High school "Rade Metalac" in Leskovac were given the opportunity to participate in block classes on the topic of microcontrollers and microcomputers. These classes were led by the professors Dr. Danijel Danković and Miloš Marjanović. Students put their theoretical knowledge of microcontroller programming into practice by implementing exercises on Arduino and Nucleo boards.

14. 3D printing

09. 06. 2022. On Thursday, June 9, 2022, high school students from "Mija Stanimirović" Niš participated in a course of the fundamentals of 3D printing. The students had the opportunity to learn the basics of the printing process and become familiar with the necessary tools for 3D modeling throughout the course. Each group went through the processes of modeling their model and prepping it for printing. Students finally had the chance to check out the produced models. Nikola Mitrović and Sandra Veljković from IEEE SB Niš led the workshop.

15. Taking part in "TEACHnology" project

05.07. – 12. 07. 2022. Faculty of Electronic Engineering Niš participated in the "TEACHnology" project organized by AIESEC in July. This initiative, part of the larger global SkillUp project of this student group, is designed to introduce high school students to the field of information technology. Speakers during the opening ceremony on July 5, 2022, included Vice Dean for Science Professor Dr. Nebojsa Dončov, as well as professors Dr. Danijel Danković and Dr. Vera Marković. The next week, on July 6, Miloš Marjanović gave a talk titled "Introduction to Arduino," and on July 8, Nikola Mitrović discussed 3D printing. Arduino workshops were held with the project participants on Monday, 11. 07. and Tuesday, 12. 07., where students practically finished the project tasks. In this case, members of the IEEE SB Niš were the ones who organized the workshops.

16. Technical meeting

Members of the organizing team had a meeting to give an overview of how the project is progressing so far. A detailed plan and an agreement were made on how further activities would proceed.

17. Summer Electronics Seminar at the Petnica Research Center

06. 09.-08. 09. 2022. Associates of the Department of Microelectronics at the Faculty of Electronic Engineering in Niš, Miloš Marjanović, Aleksandra Stojković and Milan Stojanović, held a series of lectures for participants of the Summer Electronics Seminar at the Petnica Research Center.
On Tuesday, September 6, Miloš Marjanović spoke about research in the field of self-powered sensors, and the following day, Aleksandra Stojković spoke to seminar participants about multiphysics modeling and simulations. On the same day, Miloš Marjanović spoke about the research on the Elicsir project and the experiences of working at the IHP Institute in Germany.
On Thursday, September 8, Milan Stojanović held a lecture on smart cities with a special focus on intelligent transport systems. The summer electronics seminar at the Research Center Petnica was held from August 31. until September 09, 2022. The seminar was attended by 17 students from several cities in Serbia. During this seminar, in addition to lectures, the participants worked on the realization of group projects.

18. Presentation of STEM project "Let STEM visit again IEEESTEC" to first year students

16. 09. 2022. On Friday, September 16, the associates of the Department of Microelectronics presented the STEM project to the first-year students of the Faculty of Electronic Engineering. Students had the opportunity to see the equipment located in the laboratories within the Department of Microelectronics. Also, they got acquainted with the projects they can expect in their higher years of study, previous projects of more experienced colleagues, as well as college student and high school student projects realized within last year's STEM project. The presentation of laboratory equipment, as well as previous works of STEM and IEEESTEC participants, aimed to motivate students to participate in the implementation of projects this year and become one of the authors of the work at the Jubilar 15th IEEESTEC Conference. In the presentation of the STEM project participated, prof. dr Emilija Živanović, Miloš Marjanović, Aleksandra Stojković, Jana Vračar, Nikola Mitrović, Milan Stojanović, Neda Stanojević, and Sandra Veljković.

19. Workshop for Students of The High School "Bora Stankovic" from Niš

19. 09. 2022. On Monday, September 19, the workshop was attended by 15 high school students from Grammar school Bora Stankovic in Niš. The project that the students had the opportunity to do was the realization of traffic lights and similar simpler systems using the Arduino platform. First, the mathematical relations that represent the basis were explained, and after that, the participants started the realization of the project. As they did not have the opportunity to work practically with proto boards and throw whole components until now, they were very interested in the work and realization of projects. As the students had no previous experience, during the workshops, a protoboard was used for the purpose of realizing simpler electrical circuits to prepare the students for future work with the Adruino platform. Prof. Dr. Emilija Živanović and Miloš Marjanović explained the workshop concept and course dynamics to the students. The workshop was led by Miloš Marjanović, and in the realization helped Aleksandra Stojković, Jana Vračar, Neda Stanojević and Sandra Veljković.

20. The IEEE day with students of the High School "Bora Stankovic" at Elfak

06. 10. 2022. Activities within the STEM project "Let's STEM visit again IEEESTEC" marked IEEE Day at the Faculty of Electronic Engineering in Niš. On Thursday, October 6, the students of the grammar school Bora Stanković from Niš worked with their mentors on the practical implementation of the projects for the IEEESTEC Conference. The students worked on the realization of soil moisture detectors, gas concentration detectors, devices for measuring temperature and air humidity, and investigated applications of touch sensors in lighting control applications and direct current motors. As part of the workshop, students were given a lecture on the rules of writing research papers. Student mentors are colleagues from the Department of Microelectronics: Miloš Marjanović, Milan Stojanović, Jana Vračar, Aleksandra Stojković, Sandra Veljković and Neda Stanojević.

21. Meeting with EESTEC Local Committee Niš

06. 10. 2022. The student organization EESTEC LC Niš, Electrical Engineering Sudents' European association local committee Niš, organized an online meeting to inform some of their members about how to write a scientific paper. As the Conference was online for the last two years and part of the older students graduated from the faculty, they wanted to be more informed about the principles of writing papers and how and where to find topics they can write about. They were interested in finding out from which fields they can write papers, in which writing style the papers should be written. Also, they were interested in whether each paper should have a practical realization and what are the criteria for the awards received at the Conference. In addition to information about the Conference, they were very interested in hearing more about the IEEE society, how numerous the membership is, what are the areas of activity and what engagement within the society looks like. Sandra Veljković held the meeting in front of the organizing committee of the Conference.

22. Participation in Microelectronics & Mechatronics Forum organized by theTechnical University of Sofia

07. 10. 2022. On Friday, October 7, the Technical University of Sofia organized a Microelectronics & Mechatronics Forum. During that event, the Department of Microelectronics received an invitation to participate. A paper titled The Importance of Higher Education in Electronic Engineering was presented in the panel: Education & Research. As part of the presentation, a paper published in IEEE Transactions on Education, "The Importance of Students' Practical Work in High Schools for Higher Education in Electronic Engineering", was presented. Sandra Veljković attended and participated in the Forum.

23. STEM at the Education Fair

14. 10. 2022. The Faculty of Electronic Engineering and the STEM project were presented at the Education fair, held on Friday, 14 October. High school students had the opportunity to learn about the workshops held at the faculty, what they could work on and research, and how to apply for them. They were also informed about the IEEESTEC conference and expressed their desire to come and participate this year. At the education fair, the Faculty and the STEM project were represented by Jana Vračar.

24. Project finalization of a student from Leskovac

21.10.2022. After the STEM workshop at the Technical School "Rade Metalac" in Leskovac, student Katarina Marković began the realization of her project for the IEEESTEC conference. She designed a device for measuring the water level, through mentoring work with a team from the Faculty of Electronic Engineering Niš (FEE-UNI). Given the distance between the cities of Leskovac and Niš, the finalization of the project was done through hybrid consultations: a student from the FEE-UNI worked live in the school with the student, while mentor Miloš Marjanović was involved online through the MS Teams application. Consultations were held on October 21, 2022. The project was successfully presented at the IEEESTEC conference and was awarded in the category of the best high school STEM projects.

25. 75th anniversary of the bipolar transistor

18. 11. 2022. The Faculty of Electronic Engineering in Niš joined the celebration of the 75th anniversary of the existence of the bipolar transistor, and with that goal, a workshop was held on Friday, November 18, with the students of the technical school "Nikola Tesla" from Niš. The workshop was realized by Sandra Veljković, Milica Danković and Nevena Veselinović. The largest association of engineers, IEEE, has declared 2022-2023 for the year of the bipolar transistor. During this period, the plan is to organize many different lectures, webinars and workshops in order to mark this jubilee - 75 years of existence of the bipolar transistor.

26. Poster preparations

19. 11. 2022. The participants of the STEM project prepared posters of their completed projects. The mentors who followed the implementation of the projects were also involved, and helped them with advice and suggestions.

27. Technical meeting for IEEESTEC Conference

23. 11. 2022. The last preparations concerning the organization of the conference have been completed. Many students from different cities of Serbia were planned, so it was necessary to organize them so that they could spend their time at the university in the best possible way. About 40 volunteers helped in the implementation of all the accompanying events at the conference..

28. IEEESTEC 15th student projects conference

24. 11. 2022. On November 24, 2022, the fifteenth student conference, "IEESTEC 15th Student projects conference," was organized. For two years the conference needed to be organized online. This year, however, we were able to organize the conference live and recapture the hosting spirit of prior years. The conference was organized by the student branch of IEEE SB Niš, EESTEC LC Niš and the Faculty of Electronic Engineering in Niš, in cooperation with IEEE Serbia & Montenegro Section, IEEE Electron Devices/Solid-State Circuits Chapter, IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques Chapter, IEEE WIE Affinity Group and IEEE Computational Intelligence Chapter, with the support of the Serbian Academy of Science and Arts (SASA) Branch in Niš, as well as the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development of the Republic of Serbia. The total number of received papers is 77 (from the various fields: electronics, microelectronics, telecommunications, automation, energy, computing and informatics, physics, student mobility...). A minimum of three peer reviews were provided for each paper during the peer review process. Reviewers were 49 professors and associate professors from the Faculty of Electronic Engineering participated in the review process. One of the categories of awarded students was: Special award - the best STEM high school project. Based on the received papers, the Faculty of Electrical Engineering in Niš published the “IEEESTEC 15th Student projects conference”, ISBN: 978-86-6125-257-0. Editors of the Proceedings are prof. Dr Vera Marković, prof. Dr Danijel Danković, prof. Dr Zlatica Marinković, Miloš Marjanović, Biljana Stošić and Emilija Živanović.
Full papers could be seen at Proceeding of Papers