Door Opener Day of the show with the Mouse in Frickenhausen Hörbert – manufacturer Winzki lets children take a look behind the scenes

Door Opener Day of the show with the mouse in Frickenhausen Hörbert – Manufacturer Winzki lets children take a look behind the scenes

Opening doors that are otherwise closed to children. That was the motto of the seventh Door Opener Day of the show with the mouse. In Frickenhausen near Nürtingen, young explorers were able to experience on Tuesday, October 3, at the company Winzki, how Hörbert – an MP3 player made of wood – is created.

“They really cut with light there,” calls Felix. The six-year-old watches eagerly through the protective glass of the laser cutter as the beam drills holes in a wooden case. Felix visited the Winzki company with his parents. The Frickenhausen-based company produces a child-friendly MP3 player made of wood, called Hörbert. On October 3rd, ten children between the ages of three and ten could peek behind the scenes of the workshop in both the morning and afternoon. The occasion was the so-called Door Opener Day of the “show with the mouse”.

“We also saw an educational mission in the event and wanted to introduce topics such as environmental protection and sustainability to children in a playful way,” explains company founder Rainer Brang. Thus, the young visitors learned, for example, through laminated playing cards and illustrative examples in preserving jars, that wood from sustainable forestry is good for the environment. While plastic waste harms nature.

The parents were at least as impressed by the one-hour tour of the workshop as their children. “After all, you don’t see every day how a functional technical device is created from a naked housing,” says an enthusiastic father. While the parents were particularly impressed by the amount of manual work involved in the device, the children were fascinated by the colorful buttons. Some of the young guests are Hörbert owners themselves and know that these buttons can be individually filled with music or stories: “I have a yellow techno button,” one boy reported. While five-year-old Josephine asked the question: “Dad, can Santa bring me a Hörbert?”

A highlight followed at the end of the tour: The participants were allowed, with the help of their parents, to assemble a small wooden music box. The self-built toy will remind the young guests of the Door Opener Day at Winzki for a long time with the song “All the Birds Are Already Here”.

On the “Türöffner-Tag” of the “show with the mouse”, children and families throughout Germany can experience factual stories live free of charge. Several hundred institutions, companies, research laboratories, associations, and workshops opened their doors on October 3 and held events.

“The show with the mouse” will report on the “Door Opener Day”. Probably on Sunday, October 8, 9:30 a.m. (Das Erste) and 11:30 a.m. (KiKA). The “Open the Doors!” initiative was launched by Westdeutscher Rundfunk on the occasion of the 40th mouse birthday in 2011.

Image caption: Young visitors eagerly followed how an MP3 player is created from a wooden box at the Door Opener Day at the Winzki company. Photo: Sylvia Jorde