During March 26-27, 2026, VME had the privilege of hosting a group of motivated students from Keuruu junior high school. The 15 and 16 year old JOPO (Joustava perusopetus / Flexible basic education) students spent two days at the lab and University of Vaasa in general, gaining a glimpse of lies ahead in terms of both fruitful education, and wild yet courageous future. Keuruu’s JOPO builds on a long tradition of serving students who thrive better in ‘in situ’ learning situations, instead of early industrialism-mode classroom settings. JOPO, as the name suggests (joustava=flexible) focuses on gearing students up for a job market that increasingly demands multi-talented individuals, who can easily adjust, adapt to and tackle a range of tasks in numerous settings.

The group spends a substantial amount of their school year engaged in workplace learning (work-based and productive methods), camps, industrial, community and public-sector visits, as well as serving their local area in a range of activities starting from elderly home visits and war veteran memorials, to fundraisers, bake-ups (baking for local events), and start-ups. When in this day and age young people may experience difficulties in finding summer employment, some of the visiting JOPOites proudly told of how they are having to decline their third job offer after accepting the first two. These youth gain employment through the contacts, experience and reputations they build while they are learning and demonstrating their advancing abilities at local organisations and businesses throughout their community. JOPO is the future of basic education, and arguably senior high school, and definitely higher education.

At VME we were able to compare notes. In our humble lab of one room, but many hearts, we were not only able to show the students our tools, projects and talk about our expertise, thanks to lab-family member Tinja Myllyviita, we were able to demonstrate the value of our research in entrepreneurial and community settings. We also embrace learning by doing, which sees us encourage students of all ages and stages to dive into the space and collaborate with partners who exist across the spectrum of organisations – from start-ups to large industry. We gave them a taste of how our equipment and software works in action. The students had the opportunity to participate in a mock-up of an actual study we are undertaking for the Research Council of Finland projects MISLEAD and BUGGED. Students experimented with the eyetracking, before giving in-depth insight into their analysis of scam websites.

In addition to playing detective, the group visited our special Extrapollination, at the Tritonia Artspace. This is the new interdisciplinary art exhibition highlighting the course work of University of Vaasa students, who came from across the disciplines to learn how to master cutting edge technology in order to engage in scientific research while utilising the research and the media (technology) to in-turn communicate the findings via art (see more here). JOPO students were impressed by the multidimensionality of the exhibition, curated by our artist-in-residence, and visiting lecturer Benjamin Knock (Australia and the United Kingdom). The exhibition took them through the layers of geological exploration via lidar scans – 3D rendered and printed – to highly personal expressions and sound recordings of what it is like to live with OCD. One of the students’ favourites was a piece that expressed thoughts of frustration and bewilderment through a painting of binary code overlayered with 3D printed tree forms.

Another highlight of the trip, thanks to Teemu Närvä was their visit to the best arcade in Finland. The University’s unique game arcade is not just a legend among universities, but is the crown of all retro arcade gaming experiences anywhere in Finland. Boasting the largest working arcade collection, noone will find anything like this in their local tertiary education institutions (except Vaasa’s locals of course).

Speaking of which, thanks to Dilshan Wittahachchi – a core team member of our HUMAIN team – the JOPOites were able to have a sneak-peak of the 3D printing lab, watching forms materialise in front of their eyes. They were really taken by the flexibility of its production, from spare parts for Wärtsilä, to intricate Pokemon figures. In between visiting the studio of Knock – currently located at the Wasa Innovation Center (opposite Bock’s corner) – students also had the opportunity to test the experience of studying in Uwasa’s spaces. The combination of the modern, minimalist and peaceful facilities of Tritonia, combined with the aura of simply being here, where it happens, left the JOPO students giving final feedback comprising 10-10+ and the lowest grade 9 (one point deducted for the distance from Keuruu to Vaasa). Overall, we would not say that’s bad at all.