Magazine of e.t.s.v. Thor and the department of Electrical Engineering at Eindhoven University of Technology

Magazine of e.t.s.v. Thor and the department of Electrical Engineering at Eindhoven University of Technology

29 March 2015

Goodbye Potentiaal

Good memories of Potentiaal and a new start in Flux

Pictures of Potentiaal | Meet and Greet Flux | Dies Thor | Farewell of Het Walhalla | Columns

IEditorial Connecthor Volume 8, issue 1 - March 2015 Connecthor is published by e.t.s.v. Thor and the department of Electrical Engineering at Eindhoven University of Technology. Connecthor is published quarterly with a circulation of 1200 copies and is free for all members of e.t.s.v. Thor and employees of the department of Electrical Engineering.

Editors in chief: Femke Verheggen Martijn van Beurden Layout editors: Edgar van Megen Jeroen van Oorschot Anjo Peeters Editors: Manon Eijsvogel Georgios Exarchakos Pauline van Gelder Birgit van Huijgevoort Esmee Huismans Suzanne Kuijlaars Harshal Kulkarni Mark Legters Fer Radstake Rianne Sanders Bart Smolders Cover: Worldrecord Tetris on Potentiaal Printer: Schrijen-Lippertz Editorial correspondence: Connecthor Eindhoven University of Technology Groene Loper 19, Flux P.O. Box 513 5600 MB Eindhoven (040) 247 3223, [email protected] Web: http://www.thor.edu http://www.tue.nl/ee Advertisers: Page 14: Wervingsdagen Back cover: Sioux Deadline copy next issue: 10 April 2015

F

inally the big move is almost in its final stages! We are waiting to warmly welcome the last group, the EPE group, in our new building Flux. In this edition you will find a nice collection of articles to say goodbye to the Walhalla, to several labs, and to the Potentiaal building in general, after more than forty years of history. To get you acquainted with some of the novelties in Flux, we introduce you to the new Walhalla on the sixth floor in the Flux building. If you’re looking for inspiration for an internship abroad, please have a look at the article by Roel Oomen about his internship in Singapore, or have a look at the final project of Maarten van Rossum. Further, we also pay attention to the nice work to design a race car of the future by the InMotion team and their Mission to Le Mans. We take the opportunity here to introduce and welcome Harshal Kulkarni as a new editorialboard member. At the same time, we have to say goodbye to George Exarchakos. George, thank you for your contributions to the Connecthor over the years. It was great to have you in the editorial board! Are you up for a new challenge and would you like to contribute to our magazine? We are looking for new members of the editorial board and we are especially inviting employees of the EE department to respond. As always, we will be glad to receive your suggestions and ideas for upcoming editions and you can contact us via [email protected]. We hope you will enjoy reading this new edition of the Connecthor! The Connecthor editorial board

Copyright © Connecthor 2015 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any way without prior written permission of the editorial board. Disclaimer The editor reserves the right to shorten and otherwise edit the articles. The views and opinions expressed in the articles are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of e.t.s.v. Thor or the department of Electrical Engineering at Eindhoven University of Technology.

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Content I 2 Editorial

16

4 Board Issues 7

From the President

8 Introducing... 9 News 10 Uitruimen labs EM 10 EPE labs die achterblijven 10 Avontuur met de lift 11 The flow to Flux 11 Meet and Greet Flux 12 De geschiedenis van Het Walhalla 15 Farewell of Het Walhalla 16 Pictures of Potentiaal 18 Photo page 20 Towards a new era of graduates’ profiles 21 Mountainous Maastricht 22 InMotion – The Mission to Le Mans 23 Stage in Singapore 24 57th Dies Natalis of Thor 26 Mythology: The Langobards

Pictures of Potentiaal

Curious about some special places in Potentiaaal? Have a look on pages 16 and 17.

28 Energy out of Thin Air 31 Symposium on Photonics 32 Puzzle

31

33 Column: The way we work in Flux 34 Column: Een jaar geen student 35 Location of groups in Flux

Symposium on Photonics

Thor organized a symposium on Photonics. Read more about this on page 31.

15

24 57th Dies Natalis of Thor

Thor celebrated its 57th birthday with a week full of activities. Read about them on page 24.

Farewell of Het Walhalla

There were two events to say goodbye to Het Walhalla in Potentiaal. Read more about this farewell on page 15.

March 2015| 03

IDepartment

Board Issues

L

adies and Gentlemen,

First of all, I wish you a Happy and Healthy 2015! I hope that you will be able to make most if not all of your dreams and wishes come true this year! Together we have been able to realize many good things in 2014. I just memorize some of the highlights: • We have been able to continue the strong growth in the number of firstyear students entering our full-time EE Bachelor and Automotive programs and grow to 184 students. • In addition we also further improved our efficiency in the number of students finishing their Propedeuse within one year as needed for overall improvement of our efficiency and for meeting our performance targets set for 2016. • The Bachelor College is now midway in its third year and we have managed the transition properly thanks to all of our efforts. • We have been very successful in the Impuls I program and we are well on track for realizing a strong position in Impuls II, which has its deadline in June 2015 for having all contracts completed and signed. With the Impuls programs we have been able to even further strengthen our already strong ties with industry (Philips, ASML,

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By: Ton Backx

ProDrive Maxima Medisch Centrum, Catharina Hospital, NXP, Kempenhaeghe, DNV-GL, …) as needed.

advise is again expected to be low. This we need to meet our performance targets set for 2016 as all of you know.

• We started our activities with respect to the NWO Zwaartekracht projects that we initiated and are part of.

The problems encountered with some of our Bachelor courses have largely been resolved due to the efforts of many of you. This does not imply we don’t have problems left to work on though. New challenges we are facing in the Modelling and Design courses will still require a lot of attention.

• We have been able to keep our faculty finances healthy despite the significant reduction in our direct funding (“First money stream”) and the poor economic situation in the Netherlands especially. For the fourth year in a row we have been able to establish a significant growth (>20%, 32 students) in the number of first-year students choosing for our EE or Automotive Bachelor. With 184 students (2013-2014: 152 students) we hope to pass the 200 freshmen target in our Bachelor programs coming September. Our marvelous new facilities hopefully will contribute to a further growth. The interviews in June and the intensive coaching of the students clearly motivate students. Only people facing real difficulties in passing the exams stop their study with us in the first semester. The improved attention given to our first-year students definitely is paying off with a stable low drop-out of students during the first year. Although we still see differences between the students taking the EE and the Automotive program, the overall number of first-year students that will get a preliminary negative

Department I • Three times a Cum Laude PhD in one group (ECO) in the domain of spatial division multiplexing in the European FP7 project MODE-GAP: Haoshuo Chen, Vincent Sleiffer, and Roy van Uden, • A Nature Photonics paper in this SDM domain with a data transport world record of 255 Tbit/s through a single glass fiber (200 micrometer thickness, 7 light-directing cores), realized by Chigo Okonkwo and Roy van Uden • IEEE Photonics Society Graduate Fellowship award for Zizheng Cao for innovative optically controlled radio beam steering techniques (only 10 of these awards are assigned for best PhD research each year)

As every year a lot happened in 2014 again. People I want to mention specifically: • Everybody remembers the tragic death of Juan E. Lopez Carcelen – one of our PDEng students – in April. Many people have contributed to help organize a respectful cremation ceremony. I want to specifically thank Rian van Galen for all her efforts. • Again the EM group had lots of successes in the HTSM call. Anton Tijhuis and Bart Smolders succeeded in getting funding for several projects again.

• I want to thank Alfons Bruekers and especially Jolie Boot for their contributions in helping to further shape the financial services organization of our faculty as a next step to enable further healthy growth of our organization. • Many people have contributed to prepare for our moving to Flux. A major preparatory effort was needed from many of you to enable the transition. Nevertheless I want to give special thanks to Rianne van Eerd for making sure that we can settle into our marvelous new premises very smoothly.

The year 2014 has brought us significant financial challenges again due to a further cut in our first money stream budget, the disappointing results in submitted Horizon 2020 project proposals and at the cost side the investments needed for financing the growth of our organization. The continued recession required excessive efforts again to attract the badly needed funding for new projects. We nevertheless have been able to cope with this major challenge quite well in the course of the year. We closed the books on 2014 in accordance with our expectations. Overall we may conclude that our faculty has been doing well again in 2014. I sincerely thank all of you for your major contributions to help realize the good results! We may expect 2015 to be a challenging year again. To ensure a solid financial position in 2015, additional efforts will be needed by all of us to acquire and realize additional projects financed by third parties and industrial relations. We still are facing a significant financial challenge that needs to be resolved in the course of this year by realization of – preferably – third money stream projects. Options are with our well-established partnerships, industrial relations and new activities with companies such as the Antea Group, INCAS, Research Center Jülich, Energy companies like Tennet and others. Further attention will be needed to further strengthen the Automotive skills within our faculty. The rapidly growing number of students requires more capacity. To comply

• Kevin Williams has smoothly taken over the capacity group management of the PhI group from Meint Smit. This enables Meint to spend more of his valuable time with the continuation of the worldclass research on photonics funded by his Advanced ERC Grant and the NWO Zwaartekracht. • Marion Matters again deserves to be put in the spotlight as the responsible teacher of the Bachelor College first semester course Circuits. For the third year in row this course was the best. • Jan Bergmans has played a crucial role in establishing a very strong position of our faculty in the Impuls programs and Flagship projects with Philips. Jan also succeeded in further strengthening our tight relationships with the Maxima Medical Centre, the Catharina Hospital, and Kempenhaeghe.

March 2015| 05

IDepartment for long term high risk research activities. We will have to get more of our experienced staff members part-time involved in shortterm valorization projects with industry. The money earned with these activities will be used for (co-)financing PhD and PostDoc positions. At capacity group level we will try to predominantly request for contributions of people in accordance with their strengths. This year the Graduate School will have its formal start in September. We need to continue and at some points establish university-wide coherence in the programs of our Bachelor College and Graduate School. We need to motivate our students to work towards passing their exams at their first attempt as much as possible to meet the efficiency targets set for 2016. The efficiency target of each exam is 70% or higher. Looking at our current performance, this still requires additional attention as we don’t give up on level and quality of our graduates.

with these needs we will carefully look at the skills we are lacking and hire the people required. The budget limitations our university is facing in 2015 together with the additional costs related to moving into our new building and additional investments needed for financing our growth will have a negative impact on our budget this year. In the past we have demonstrated to be capable of generating the funds needed to keep our organization financially healthy. We have shown that we can compensate lack of direct funding by attracting more money from 2nd and especially 3rd streams. All of our Capacity Groups have a sound financial basis despite the budget cuts we have been facing over the past eight years. As we have a well performing organization and as we are a strong team, the Board of the Faculty has decided to cope with the financial challenges by further strengthening our national and international market positions. Extension of our valorization-oriented activities will enable the further growth of our third-party project activities. This implies that tenured staff members will have to spend more of their time in R&D activities themselves. We will adjust the organization as needed to get the necessary additional external funding. Although it will require significant effort and contributions from all of us again this year, we strongly believe in our capabilities to win the projects needed and to get the funding required as we have demonstrated in the past years. To assure that we don’t have to

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reorganize in near future, I call upon all of you to help keeping our financial position sound by contributing to and supporting the acquisition of applied-research and development projects with external partners. Our Centre for Wireless Technologies Eindhoven, Centre for Care and Cure Technologies Eindhoven and Centre for Power and Energy Eindhoven will be further strengthened to assure a solid basis for the needed improvement of our visibility and of our performance in acquiring the necessary projects. Each of our Centers will be strengthened to further develop and to make them perform. They will play an even more important role in connecting to the national and European Smart Grid developments, healthrelated R&D and to further strengthen our relations with the High Tech industries. Also in this year additional initiatives will be taken related to the university wide “Valorisation Program”. As you all know this program focuses on smooth exchange of knowledge with industry and societal parties for application and product development. To improve our efficiency, we will need to adapt our organization in accordance with market changes. Diversification in the way we work together with industry will be necessary. Industries are showing increasing difficulties with committing financing for four-year PhD projects. They look for short-term results and are prepared to pay for these results, but they are facing problems in committing finances

This year we want to increase the number of first-year students starting their Bachelor study in Electrical Engineering or Automotive Engineering. We want to get more than 200 first-year students starting in our Bachelor programs in September 2015. Beginning of this year all our groups will move into our new premises. The new building is definitely offering us class and comfort, but it will also bring challenges. The area available within the new building will be far less compared to the space we are used to have. This implies that we have to organize our work differently. We need to learn the best way of making use of our new office and lab spaces. I want to ask everybody to be creative and open your minds for the opportunities the new situation will bring. Definitely our turbulent world will confront us again with all kinds of challenges in 2015. Some are foreseen as indicated above and some will just happen unexpectedly. The spirit we have created together within our faculty as a strong and coherent team convinces me that we will be able to overcome the problems we will face and win. The challenges will even make us stronger than we have been so far. We all need to contribute at our strengths and power to make sure we remain at least as healthy as we are now and to further strengthen our position in this competitive world! Ton Backx Dean Electrical Engineering

Association I

From the President

By: Birgit van Huijgevoort

T

he weeks before the moving were very amazing. They were quite busy and chaotic, but also lots of fun. Everywhere in Potentiaal there were those big wooden “trash” boxes. During the weeks, you saw them getting filled with what some people would describe as rubbish. Nevertheless, it was like heaven for the collectors among us. This could be witnessed pretty easily on the second floor; we found out that Thor and Het Walhalla had a lot of fancy, sometimes useless, stuff. We cannot take a lot of things with us to Flux, so we had to get rid of everything. Some more valuable stuff was sold, but most of it was dropped on the second floor. Everybody could take it home for free. This obviously caused some funny sights; people came with bags and filled them with free stuff they liked, while some people found their inner child again by playing with some toys. One guy who almost never comes to the second floor apparently

is going to paint his room soon, because he left the second floor with a lot of painting stuff. Some items were really rubbish, which also caused lots of fun; someone found a golf club and some old mugs. I guess you can imagine what happened next. These last couple of weeks before the move to Flux were also a great opportunity to walk through Potentiaal and look around for the things you might miss, or the things you definitely wouldn’t miss. One thing is for sure; a lot will change. At least the visible things; the Thor spirit will probably stay the same. An example of what a lot of people will miss for sure is “het gezelligheidshok” and the second floor, which is basically ours at the moment. Including the e-winkel, where the hobbyists can work on whatever they want. Some examples of what probably won’t be missed are the exterior of Potentiaal, the bad heating and the lack of natural light.

Walking through Potentiaal these days and looking at all these trash boxes makes me realize that the move is coming very close. Nevertheless, it is very hard to imagine what it will be like to leave Potentiaal and move into Flux. Everything went really fast and it feels like we are in Potentiaal for such a long time already. The fact that we will move in a couple of weeks does not yet feel real actually. The move also makes me feel curious and excited, but mostly I wonder what it will be like; will I like it, or will I just miss Potentiaal. No matter how crappy it is currently, it does almost feel like home. Veel gedonder! Birgit van Huijgevoort President of Thor

March 2015| 07

IDepartment

Introducing...

“

Hello everybody. First of all, I wish you a very happy new year. My name is Shaikshavali Chitraganti, originally from India. I received my BE (2006) and MTech (2009) degrees from BITS-Pilani, India and IIT Bombay, India respectively. I have defended my PhD thesis (2014) from University of Lorraine, Nancy, France, where I worked towards stability and control problems of random jump linear systems. Subsequently I have joined the control systems (CS) group, Electrical Engineering department, TU/e

as a postdoc, where I will be working on data-driven linear parameter varying model learning and control of complex process systems. My broad interests lie in the analysis of stochastic systems and I am also curious to challenges both theoretically and practically that push me out of my comfort zone. My leisure time includes reading, jogging, cycling, playing tennis and table tennis.”

M

y name is Fei Ni and I would like to introduce myself as a postdoc researcher at the Electrical Energy Systems group. I grew up in a small city located in southwest China, where I finished my kindergarten, primary school and high school. After the college-entrance examination, I moved to another city in the northwest of China for my Bachelor’s degree study and the following Master’s degree study. With the aim of enlarging my vision, I started my PhD

H

i! My name is Radovan Bojanić and I am a 28-year-old PhD student at the Eindhoven University of Technology. I come from Belgrade, the capital city of Serbia. Since January 7, 2015 I started with my PhD studies and before TU/e I earned my MSc at the University of Belgrade, Department of Electrical Engineering. I have worked as a research assistant at the Institute of Physics Belgrade for four years. During my master thesis I was working on metamaterials in the microwave range and their application in antenna arrays in cooperation with the Institute of Microwave Techniques and Electronics (IMTEL), which qualified me for my PhD position at TU/e.

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In my spare time I play basketball and korfball, swim, try any other team sport and support my favorite club - Red Star Belgrade. Beside sport I like to spend time with my colleagues and my friends, travel and see different nations and cultures, learn various languages, etc. In the period between 2009 and 2013 I was a member of National Korfball Team of Serbia, which helped me to gain many friends, see a lot of beautiful countries and cities and learn how to work in a group. Last but not least, I would like to thank everyone from the Electromagnetics group at TU/e because they accepted me as one of them and helped me with everything from the beginning. I am looking forward to meet more people from TU/e and Eindhoven!

study in Germany in October 2010 and then I made my doctoral defense at Aachen at the end of 2014. Joining TU/e starts a new chapter of life; I’m going to improve myself on both working and living. In my spare time, I like to do sports, such as jogging, yoga and playing badminton. I am also fond of cooking, especially Asian food and Italian cuisine. Besides, I love traveling and taking a photograph along the road. I’m looking forward to memorable experiences of this year.

News I Christmas gathering of EM

To jointly celebrate the upcoming Christmas and to close the year 2014, the Electromagnetics group held a gathering in their kitchen on floor 13 in Potentiaal. It was also a moment to say goodbye to the building, as the group was to be moved in the first week of January 2015.

Roboticadagen – Duurzaamheidsdag

Op dinsdag 20 januari vond de Roboticadag plaats voor de vwo brugklassers van het Van Maerlantlyceum uit Eindhoven, gecombineerd met een groep 3vwo’ers van het Maaslandcollege uit Oss, die meer wilden weten over duurzaamheid. Het ochtendprogramma was voor beide scholen gelijk, namelijk een presentatie over robotica en een bezoek aan de voetbalrobots van Tech United. Een bezoek aan de nieuwe Amphizaal van Flux zat er ook in. Daar kregen ze de glasvezeldemo en de hartslagdemo te zien. Voor het middagprogramma werden de scholieren van het Van Maerlantlyceum meegenomen naar vloer 2, waar ze aan allerlei leuke workshops mochten deelnemen. De derdeklassers van het Maaslandcollege kregen uitleg over duurzaamheid. Leden van de studententeams van TU/ecomotive en het Solar Team gaven een presentatie, waarna ook deze scholieren mochten deelnemen aan een workshop. De dag werd afgesloten met een drankje en chips in Het Walhalla. Op dinsdag 27 januari ontvangt de faculteit brugklassers van het Sondervickcollege uit Veldhoven voor hun Roboticadag.

Highlights of the SPS group

20th European symposium on Ultrasound Contrast Imaging, Rotterdam, Jan 22-23. Two Best Poster Awards for: • L. Demi, R.J.G. Van Sloun, X. Zhao, H. Wijkstra, and Massimo Mischi • S. Schalk, L. Demi, S. Martijn, J. de la

The vlaai

The vlaai of this edition goes to the Tetris committee of Thor for obtaining the Guinness Record for the largest tetrisgame ever. Rosette, H. Wijkstra, and M. Mischi, 5th Dutch BME Conference, Egmond aan Zee, Jan 22-23. 2nd best oral presentation for Aline Serteyn, Rik Vullings, Mohammed Meftah, Jan Bergmans. 3rd Best Paper Award for Transactions published by IEEE-EMBS in 2014 Wijshoff, R.; Van Asten, A.; Peeters, W.; Bezemer, R.; Noordergraaf, G.; Mischi, M.; Aarts, R. Moreover, H. Wijkstra, and Massimo Mischi have been on TV, Nederland 2, during the program Meldpunt (http://meldpunt. omroepmax.nl/home/) with a share of 482,000 people. Here is the short movie: https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=NSLUgTDKYQI

March 2015| 09

IVaria

Uitruimen labs EM

EPE labs die achterblijven Door: W. Thirion

H

et lab in Impuls, capaciteitsgroep EPE, stamt uit het jaar 1959. Het idee van de laboratoriuminrichting kwam van prof. dr. ir. J.G.Niesten. Hij had een vooruitziende blik en maakte er een, voor die tijd, modern lab van. Het was zo goed dat het tot op heden functioneel is gebleven. Uniek is het schakelbord dat door de firma De Hoop (met een scheepsanker in het logo) is vervaardigd. Dit is een mooi stuk handwerk dat geheel op maat werd gemaakt.

Het heeft mij enkele jaren gekost om alle details van de laboratoriuminrichting met de vele relais en beveiligingen goed in beeld te krijgen. Deze kennis is straks niet meer nodig, maar ik verwacht dat de herinneringen daaraan nog lang zullen blijven . We zijn al bijna twee jaar bezig met de nieuwe laboratoriuminrichting en daarbij worden de ervaringen met het oude lab ook meegenomen. Het wordt ook weer een open en overzichtelijk lab met toekomstgerichte universele voorzieningen. Duurzaam bouwen noemt men dat nu.

Het klimaat in Impuls is niet altijd aangenaam. In de herfst en winter hebben we last van tocht waardoor de thermostaat op 24 staat om toch nog een behaaglijk gevoel te krijgen. Door al dat glas wonen we in de zomer in een broeikast en kan de temperatuur behoorlijk oplopen. In Flux is het klimaat beter geregeld en heeft het lab veel minder glasoppervlakte. Hier verwacht ik een grote verbetering ten opzichte van de huidige situatie. Toch vraag ik mij af of het nieuwe lab ook zo lang mee zal gaan als het oude.

De tijden veranderen en het onderzoek verandert, maar het lab kan, door de universele opbouw, zonder veel aanpassingen dienst blijven doen. Dat was ook het sterke punt van het oude lab. Qua veiligheid en functionaliteit zetten we een grote stap vooruit, maar er zijn ook nadelen, zoals een gebrek aan opslagruimte en kantoorruimte.

Avontuur met de lift

Door: Jos Dortmans

M

ijn meest opvallende ervaring met E-hoog is het verhaal met de lift. In het collegejaar 2009-2010 was ik de Commissaris Walhalla in het Bestuur van studievereniging Thor. Na een kort bezoek aan het Walhalla wilde ik nog even wat werk verrichten in de bestuurskamer van Thor. Ik nam de lift op verdieping -1 en wilde uitkomen op verdieping 2. Dit korte stukje met de lift verliep helaas niet helemaal

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soepel. De lift begon namelijk erg schokkerig te bewegen en het brandalarm begon te klinken. Ik kon de lift niet meer verlaten dus ik belde direct het alarmnummer van de TU/e. Er bleek een brandalarm te zijn afgegaan op de 14e verdieping van E-hoog. Later bleek dit een brand in de motor van mijn lift te zijn. De beveiliging van de TU/e bleef contact met mij houden via de telefoon in de lift. Ik kon niet zien op welke verdieping ik vast zat want het

display in de lift was uitgevallen. Uiteindelijk heeft een BHV’er mij ergens rond de 7e verdieping gevonden. Ik kon de lift nog niet verlaten omdat ik tussen twee verdiepingen in vast zat. De BHV’er bleef contact met mij houden tot de brandweer op de juiste verdieping arriveerde. Na ongeveer een uur vast te hebben gezeten, bevrijdde de brandweer mij uit mijn benarde positie.

Association & Department I

The flow to Flux

By: Jeroen van Oorschot

Introduction

Moving

As I am writing this article, Potentiaal is slowly emptied and Flux is starting to live. When you read this, Potentiaal will probably be almost forgotten.

the university board realize that they really should make space for the study associations. In the end, Thor and Van der Waals got a board room and a bar on the sixth floor.

First notices

Cleaning up

Around four years ago, it became clear that the EE faculty was really going to move. The new building, ‘project 2’, to be built on the location of the yet to demolish N-laag would mark the end of the yet to be realized green strip. It became clear quickly that the building would not be as large as Potentiaal and in the first concepts there was not even place for Thor. A large demonstration in the Hoofdgebouw with lots of balloons made

In 40 years’ time Thor has gathered more and more space in Potentiaal and a proportional amount of stuff. The past few years and mostly this year this had to be reduced. All the less necessary stuff were sold or given away and archives were digitized. In the end, all remainders are either moved to our new rooms or disposed in the box-pallets as you probably have seen in Potentiaal.

So we got some space and now it has to become our new home. There were a lot of negotiations between “J.D. van der Waals”, the study association of Applied Physics, and the EE faculty about where both bars and board rooms would come. Next, there were guidelines made on what Thor could and couldn’t do in Flux, and how Thor and Van der Waals would share the space. Finally, the real fun began: a new bar was designed and built together with our new beer supplier, Jupiler. For our board room, which we share with ODIN, Waldur, and IEEE SBE, a layout was designed and furniture, including a custommade bookcase and front desk, was built and placed.

Meet and Greet Flux

March 2015| 11

IAssociation

De geschiedenis van Het Walhalla Door: Milan Marell

L

ange tijd geleden bestond er binnen de faculteit Elektrotechniek de behoefte aan meer contact tussen de diverse afdelingen van de faculteit Elektrotechniek. De vraag ontstond hoe men deze contacten kon leggen en verbeteren. Na beraad werd er overgegaan tot het instellen van een zogeheten ‘Thor-borrel’. Men hoopte dat onder het genot van een al dan niet alcoholische drankje, de gesprekken tussen de leden van de diverse afdelingen van de faculteit op gang zouden komen. Tijdens deze gelegenheden bleek echter dat deze borrels te officieel van aard waren om ontspannen gesprekken mogelijk te maken. Ook werd er geconstateerd dat er op deze borrels sprake was van een grote mate van groepsvorming, hetgeen natuurlijk niet de bedoeling was. Weldra werd er dan ook uitgekeken naar een alternatieve oplossing voor dit probleem. Op de Technische Universiteit Delft zat men met hetzelfde probleem. Zij hadden daar echter sinds een aantal jaren een goede oplossing voor, in vorm van het ‘E-café’. Dit was een gezellig ingerichte bar onder het gebouw van de faculteit Elektrotechniek. Dit café, dat geheel door studenten werd gerund, werd regelmatig bezocht door

hoogleraren, wetenschappelijk medewerkers en studenten. Door de gezellige inrichting van het café was de sfeer er dermate ontspannen, dat ongedwongen contact mogelijk was. Iets dergelijks was dan ook een uitstekende vervanging voor de ‘Thorborrels’. Tegelijkertijd met het idee, ontstonden natuurlijk ook de problemen: “Waar moest deze gelegenheid gevestigd worden?”, “Hoe kon men de benodigde vergunningen krijgen?”, etc. Bij het bestuur van de faculteit stond men redelijk positief tegenover het oprichten van een dergelijke gelegenheid, maar een pasklare oplossing kon men op dat moment niet geven. Het plan kwam pas goed van de grond toen in februari 1972 de toenmalige decaan van de faculteit Elektrotechniek, Prof. Dr. C.E. Mulders, namens het bestuur van de faculteit een geschenk aan Thor aanbood. Dit in verband met het naderende Lustrum van studievereniging Thor. Dit geschenk betrof een ruimte onder in het gebouw E-Hoog. Bij dit geschenk werd de wens uitgesproken dat hier een café gevestigd zou worden dat zou bijdragen aan betere contacten

tussen alle mensen die verbonden waren aan de faculteit Elektrotechniek. De zorg voor de inrichting en opbouw van dit café werd opgedragen aan M. Klein Haneveld, een toenmalig bestuurslid der e.t.s.v. Thor. Deze taak werd later overgenomen door Ben Kleikamp, de eerste Commissaris Walhalla der e.t.s.v. Thor. Later vormde hij samen met Marcel de Beaumont de eerste Walhalla Commissie. Samen gaven zij de leiding aan de barkeepers, het Tappersgilde in wording. Na een lange inwerkperiode en mede dankzij baanbrekend werk van de toenmalige President van de studievereniging, M.W.M. van de Ven, werd bij de afdeling Bouwkunde een architect, de heer J. Lagerwerf, bereid gevonden om bouwtekeningen en een maquette te maken voor een eventuele verbouwing van de desbetreffende ruimte. Met dit materiaal toog de inmiddels opgerichte “Walhallacommissie” naar het bestuur van de faculteit Elektrotechniek om haar goedkeuring voor de kwestie te krijgen. Nadat de toestemming voor de verbouwing gegeven was en nadat een globale schatting van de kosten en de verdeling ervan was gemaakt, ontstond de vraag: “Zal alles op tijd klaar zijn?” Het derde Lustrum van Thor naderde immers snel. Uit een kort gesprek met de Bouw Technische Dienst bleek dat de tijd waarin de werkzaamheden verricht moesten worden te kort was om de verbouwing te kunnen voltooien. Er werd een tussenoplossing bedacht. De ruimte zou een voorlopige inrichting krijgen tot er een geschikt tijdstip was gevonden om tot een volledige verbouwing over te gaan. Daarnaast moest de ruimte nog een passende naam krijgen. Aangezien het meeste werk door de leden van studievereniging Thor werd verricht, was het snel duidelijk dat er een naam in de mythologische sfeer gekozen zou worden. Een naam

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Association I die verband hield met een plaats van rust, ontspanning en plezier en een plaats waar men met genoegen na zou kunnen praten over het gedane werk en over minder belangrijke dingen. Al gauw werd de naam ”Het Walhalla” voorgedragen en deze werd met algemene instemming aanvaard. De oprichting van “Het Walhalla” verliep grotendeels voorspoedig, maar er waren natuurlijk ook enkele tegenslagen. Zo werd er voorgesteld om de eerstejaars studenten tijdens hun introductieweek een bijdrage te laten leveren aan het opvrolijken van de ruimte. Deze bijdrage bestond uit het maken van muurschilderingen met waterverf. Verf en kwasten werden ter plekke gebracht, maar het schilderfestijn liep uit de hand en er werd meer op de muren geschreven en gekladderd dan geschilderd. Op zich was dit geen grote ramp. Dat werd het echter wel toen bekend werd gemaakt, dat voor men de muren kon overschilderen, men eerst de waterverflagen moest verwijderen. Deze taak werd door drie man op zich genomen en in ongeveer een week voltooid.

voor de aanleg van een aanrecht. Daarnaast had de faculteitswerkplaats van oude deuren tafels gemaakt, waaraan men kon zitten.

het schilderfestijn liep uit de hand en er werd meer op de muren geschreven en gekladderd dan geschilderd

Na dit incident werd er, in samenwerking met de architect en een schilder, een passende kleur uitgezocht. Spoedig daarop werd het benodigde materiaal aangeschaft en werden de muren overgeschilderd. Ondertussen had de Bouw Technische Dienst gezorgd voor de aanleg van een aan- en afvoer van water en

Op 20 november 1972 kon men uiteindelijk overgaan tot de semi-officiële opening van “Het Walhalla”. Op deze dag bezochten ongeveer 170 mensen Het Walhalla om er kennis mee te maken. Vanaf die dag was Het Walhalla dagelijks geopend van 17.00 uur tot 18.30 uur (later van 16:30 uur tot 19:00 uur). Aangezien Het Walhalla er niet op uit was om winst te behalen, kon de prijs van de consumpties laag worden gehouden. En daar het bezoekersaantal redelijk constant was, kon men al spoedig een bandrecorder aanschaffen van de opbrengsten. Dit kwam de sfeer natuurlijk alleen maar ten goede.

Het Walhalla had haar doel bereikt. Na de verbouwing en herinrichting werd Het Walhalla officieel geopend op 11 december 1973. Ook in die tijd was er al sprake van grote bureaucratie op de Universiteit. Vandaar dat officiële erkenning van het college van bestuur pas volgde op 8 februari 1974, een dag die wij tot op heden vijfjaarlijks herdenken in de vorm van groot feest. Sinds het ontstaan van Het Walhalla zijn er altijd mensen geweest die, onder leiding van een Commissaris Walhalla, er met veel enthousiasme hebben gewerkt. In de loop der jaren zijn er allerlei dingen verbeterd. Daardoor is Het Walhalla tot op heden nog steeds een ontmoetingsplek voor studenten, wetenschappelijk medewerkers en professoren. De sfeer is er goed en het bier is er nog altijd helder… Dit artikel is eerder gepubliceerd in een Walhalla Lustrumboek.

Het afmaken van de volledige verbouwing van Het Walhalla liet uiteindelijk nog op zich wachten tot het einde van het collegejaar 1972-1973. Door de veel mooiere, uiteindelijke inrichting kwamen er ook vaker professoren en wetenschappelijk medewerkers.

March 2015| 13

Association I

Farewell of Het Walhalla By: Esmee Huismans

With moving to another location comes saying goodbye to the old location. Having a farewell that is worthy of the more than forty years’ history in Het Walhalla, it was decided we should organize not one event, but two. The first event took place on Friday the 30th of January. This event was a drink mainly for people who shared a piece of history in Het Walhalla. The second event was ‘the last party in Het Walhalla’ on Thursday the 5th of February. This event focused more on the current students. Both events celebrated the good times everyone has had on that location and giving everyone a chance to say a proper goodbye.

S

tarting with the drink on Friday the 30th, the idea was to invite as many people who shared a piece of history as possible and to give them the opportunity to have one last drink at the location where they used to come. The people who were invited were for example former board members of Thor or former ‘Tappers’ of Het Walhalla. To make it happen that all those people received an invitation, quite some hours went into doing research on their current address or e-mail. We would even call people and would ask them if they used to be a part of our study association. Everyone who was contacted reacted enthusiastically and was glad to be invited to enjoy a last drink. To make it possible for everyone to enjoy their last drinks without paying for them at the specific events, we asked people if they would donate a keg of beer. At first our goal was to reach 1000 liters. However, everyone wanted to make the last hours spending in Het Walhalla evenings to never forget, our first goal of 1000 liters was quickly reached. In the end 2000 liters were reached. We are still very grateful for every donation that was done for the purpose of creating great evenings. Even besides having beer, we could welcome everyone at the last drink in Het

Walhalla with a glass of Prosecco. Not being used to have Prosecco served at that location, invitees were positively surprised with that welcome. Ending the last drink with a shot of Bokma at 8 o’clock, goodbyes were said to the location and people were leaving satisfied with the opportunity to relive old times once more.

Both locations were transferred to amazing party locations, being decorated with lights, having a set-up for deejays and bars at both locations. During almost the whole time both locations were filled with people, which is not that hard to imagine if you realize that an estimated number of people present had a peak level of 600.

Fortunately for all current students, the amount of sponsored beer was that high that there would be enough free beer for the last party to last almost the whole evening. Having foreseen that just Het Walhalla as a location would be too small for all the expected guests, it was arranged that also the entrance of Potentiaal could be used.

Having had a large amount of help from all volunteers, everyone who wanted could enjoy a very last evening in Het Walhalla. However, at midnight the very end was finally there. People were finishing their final drink and stepping outside for the very last time. It was a successful event, a great farewell and indeed an evening to never forget.

March 2015| 15

IDepartment

Pictures of Potentiaal By: Mark Legters

Academisch erfgoed This is the small treasure room of Potentiaal, located at PT -1.03, next to Het Walhalla. A large part of the academic heritage was stored here, among which the first walky-talky, the first radio of Philips and the first monochrome television. Professor Eykhoff and mr. Huber, former staff of Control Systems, collected all this and made sure they were all still operational. The entire heritage is being assessed and part of it will hopefully be displayed in Flux.

Achterkant schakelbord Impuls This is the back of the switchboard in Impuls.

Akoestische meetkamers This is the acoustics measurement room, located at floor 0. An Architecture, Urbanism and Building-Sciences student did his graduation project on sound isolation in buildings here, 15 years ago. Since then this room has not been used anymore.

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Department I DoKa Potentiaal had its own darkroom, to process photographic materials.

Duikbootruimte From the preparation room, behind the large lecture room of Potentiaal, you can access this space below the lecture room. This is also known as the submarine room (duikbootruimte). From here, the lecture room used to be heated.

Technische ruimte -1 This is the technical room at floor -1, hidden behind the red door next to Het Walhalla. It used to be visible from the corridor, but due to fire safety a wall was built, as can be seen in the picture.

March 2015| 17

9

15

7

21 5

1

13

27

19 3 11

22 16

8 12

2

4 6

17

25

14

26

24

18 23

28

20 10

1. Volundr Soldering Workshop

16. Van Lint Sportweek

2. OkThorberfest

17 & 18. Christmas Drink

3. Lunch lecture Automotive Design

19. Ivaldi LAN

4. Exam training Calculus

20. Ivaldi Parents Day

5. TV Deco

21. Ivaldi Party

6. TenneT excursion

22. Excursion Vostermans

7. føten party

23. Bartenders test Niels & Daan

8. Eagle workshop Farnell

24. Exam training Signals

9 - 12. Dies

25 & 26. Eindborrel

13 & 14. Tetris

27 & 28. Eindfeest

15. Symposium Photonics

IDepartment

Towards a new era of graduates’ profiles By: Sonia M. Gómez Puente

T

he Strategic Plan TU/e 2020 set itself the ambition of educating 50% more engineers and increasing the variety of engineering profiles (industry, research, and teaching) that the study programs offers1. The vision on the Graduate School (GS) appeals not only for a greater differentiation but also for more individual choice in the master programs. The rationale for the Graduate School is to provide a variety of options to offer to different types of engineering students so that every master student is able to specialize and develop towards a specific engineering profile. But this ambition does not stop here. The graduates who wish to progress to a designer program (PDEng) or doctorate (PhD) may have the opportunity to enroll in tracks that lead to this career development. One of the major changes within the GS framework is that the course normalization goes from 2.5 to 5 ECTS courses. The design principles of the Graduate School for the adjustment in the study programs are defined as shown in Figure 1.

Need for change in the Electrical Engineering master programs

Figure 2: Transformation of the EE master programs: overview current and new master curriculum • having a clear international orientation • having sufficient flexibility to cover diverse specializations • identifying common basic knowledge and skills in the program • preparing students for professional careers

The developments in the Graduate School require a new character of the study programs to accommodate the graduates’ profile. The rationale for such a change is:

• having considerable depth and breadth

• aiming at a higher level of abstraction than bachelor

• having a second entry moment.

• facilitating student choices in adequate schedules

To give form to the study programs the vision of the GS is presented in Figure 2. The core courses are defined as the compulsory courses that are to be followed by all enrolled students in the EE master program. Comparing the changes from the previous and the suggested new curriculum there are no dramatic differences in general. As an instance, most of the courses of the Mini Program 1 are taken in the Core Packages, and the courses of the Mini Program 2 are taken in the specialization courses. In Figure 3 we present the alternatives for the core packages.

Figure 1: Overview of Master’s Programs as of 2015/16

1

Position Paper Graduate School ‘Revision of Graduate School Master’s programs’. CvB, 2014

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The selection of the specialization paths for our study programs is founded on the choice of essential courses from EE bachelor major and the old EE master program, advised elective courses from EE bachelor program, essential and advised master elective topics, industrial or academic opportunities after graduation, and finally, courses which open up scholarship opportunities for students in this path (if available). With respect to the Internship (15 ECTS), a scientific staff member of EE will be appointed to each student as a supervisor. In terms of the internship, this can be extended to 20 ECTS by using 5 ECTS from the electives and it could also include international experience. The Graduation project (45 ECTS) will include a graduation contract signed at the ‘kick-off’ moment. Also, it will account for a mid-term review with the entire panel of faculty staff and it will also include the assessment of professional skills and additional skills lab.

Department & Varia I to provide career preparation, and to offer scope that is broader than a single specialization within EE.

Second entrance moment

Figure 3: Alternatives core packages

The Professional Skills of the graduates

Changes do not only take place at content level. There are also new adjustments regarding the Professional Skills. Our current package of non-technical courses and training (i.e. entrepreneurship, project management, history of profession, and cultural integration processes) remains almost the same as these are considered basic courses to prepare students for a career profile in industry, although there are slight changes. Additional training is also necessary with respect to ways of doing research, not just the methodological aspects but

also ethical ones, as it was identified by the faculty staff of almost all research groups during the data collection on preferences and needs. Moreover, another new aspect in the implementation of the master is the role of the coach as a mentor through the entire MSc program. The supervisor will also be the coach of the students to discuss the progress on the professional skills trajectory. The main role and tasks will be to answer questions about individual study situations, to ensure students address other staff well prepared,

Finally, the GS structure within the EE is considering a second entrance moment in February. Although the faculty staff considers this entrance moment very important, the lack of capacity to cover this demand is a challenge. However, with the use of a blended-approach in the form of video lectures, web lectures and other ICT tools, the lectures can still be offered online. This approach together with the increase in exercise hours and office hours will also be used to enhance the self-study time. Sonia M. Gómez Puente Education Development Policy Advisor, EE

Mountainous Maastricht By: Maarten van Rossum

R

ecently, I moved to Maastricht. I’ve entered the final stage of my studies, graduation. In an eight-months study, I will try to establish a method to measure electromagnetic properties of the brain using an MRI. If that’s not hard enough by itself, I will also try to achieve that in the academic hospital of Maastricht. This implies that I will need to work with doctors (without technical background) and no direct technical support as for how the MRI works.

Being a true Dutchman, I always use my bike to get around. However, my untrained legs protest loudly when I strain to get up the Caberg where I live.

At an hour’s drive from friends and family the remoteness of Maastricht isn’t that bad. The upside is that from Maastricht it’s less than an hour’s drive to the Ardennen and even closer to other beautiful climbing areas such as Nideggen and Pont-a-Lesse.

The hospital employs lots of people from other parts of the Netherlands especially on the research departments and in the University. Therefore, the main language is Dutch. However, “natives” among each other speak something that seems a combination of Flemish, German, and a little French. After a good 2 years of practice with my parentsin-law, I understand most of it. In comparison with the northern part of the country, Maastricht has got quite a few “mountains”.

March 2015| 21

IVaria

InMotion – The Mission to Le Mans By: Mathijs Hamers

I

t all starts with a dream, completing the most prestigious endurance race in the world. InMotion’s main goal is to complete the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Where just completing these 24 hours would be a major achievement on its own, thereby we plan to drive faster and use less fuel than our competitors. InMotion is an automotive student team, which has close connections with both the TU/e and Fontys. For several years fundamental research has been done in order to design our race car of the future. Since September 2014 we stepped things up a notch, we have acquired a new headquarter, and our team has expanded to over 50 members. We currently house students from multiple levels of education. Some are doing full-time internships, others just like our project, and help out in their spare time. Next to the team members we have a ten-man board, which runs day-to-day operations, and does the management. All together we are hard at work, to design, engineer and build our Le Mans racer, the IM01. This car will feature a serial hybrid drivetrain. Since current battery technologies will not allow us to drive for 24 hours yet, we have to use an on-board wankel combustion engine to create our electricity. By running the engine at a constant RPM, we can reach an extremely high efficiency, so overall fuel consumption will be lower than our competitors. Furthermore energy is recuperated when braking. By using a bank of super capacitors

to temporarily store energy, before feeding it back into the batteries, we will regain as much energy as possible. Not just the powertrain is ground breaking, our active suspension and aerodynamics are a completely new design as well. By using both systems in tandem we can insure we always have the optimal setup, for every part of the track. Whereas with a conventional car, you decide on one setup that is performing well in some parts, but will not be ideal on other parts. This means we end up with a perfectly handling car that can still achieve high top speeds, on Le Mans’ long straightaways. In 2016 we plan to have the IM01 completely finished. By then we will start an extensive test programme, including a visit to the infamous Nürburgring Nordschleife. For decades automotive manufacturers have used this twenty kilometre track, to benchmark their vehicles. So what better way to show our

knowledge than by beating the all-time lap record? Set over 30 years ago, we should have a big chance to take this record, considering the IM01’s modern technology. Over two years of fundamental research have already been put into the active aerodynamics, vehicle dynamics, embedded systems, combustion engines and system integration. We have set our deadlines on making it to the 2017 running of the Le Mans 24 hours. Competing in the experimental “Garage 56” class, frees us of many rules and regulations. Whereas the regular cars have to comply with an extensive list of regulations, the Garage 56 entry will only have to conform to the safety rules. This means we can adopt all the aforementioned technologies. As the engineering stages are currently being finished, the time has finally come to start building some race cars! Firstly we will start building our test-bed, the IM/e. This car will be based on the Formule-Bio, which has previously been build by our founding fathers. Using this platform, we know we will have a proven base, to do further testing. The IM/e will feature a fully electric drivetrain, very similar to the drivetrain which will eventually make it into the IM01. The IM/e will be used to gather knowledge on electric drivetrains and active aerodynamics. Furthermore it is the perfect method, to get our team-members experienced in designing, engineering and building high performance cars. Want to know more about our project? Looking for an awesome way to do your internships or getting ECTS otherwise, or just spare time? Have a look at our website www. inmotion.tue.nl.

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Varia I

Stage in Singapore

By: Roel Oomen

S

ingapore is een stadstaat met 5.4 miljoen inwoners en ligt in een gebied dat net iets groter is dan de Nederlandse Noordoostpolder. De minderheid van de bevolking, slechts 13.9 procent, is van Maleisische afkomst. Dit zijn de oorspronkelijke bewoners. De rest bestaat voornamelijk uit Chinezen, maar er zijn ook veel andere bevolkingsroepen te vinden in Singapore. Dit heeft als gevolg dat de cultuur een mengsel is van allerlei volkeren en geloven. Een ding waar dit goed aan te merken is, is het aanbod aan voedsel in Singapore. In de verschillende foodcourts is er een groot aanbod in de verschillende keukens. Zo vind je er Japans, Vietnamees, Indonesisch, Indiaas, Koreaans, Maleisisch, Chinees en nog veel meer. Je kan dus al veel van de Aziatische keuken meemaken zonder Singapore te verlaten. Het mooiste is nog wel dat het meeste eten in de foodcourts ook nog eens spotgoedkoop is!

nieuwbouw is er gelukkig ook nog redelijk wat natuur te vinden. Zo is er een groot natuurpark in het midden van de stad en zelf woon ik naast het laatste oorspronkelijke regenwoud van Singapore. Ik vind het dan ook heerlijk om door deze parken te rennen tussen de verschillende dieren die hier nog te vinden zijn, zoals Java-apen, vleermuizen en watervaranen. De eerste keer dat ik deze dieren in het wild tegenkwam keek ik er toch wel even van op, maar nu kijk ik er zelfs niet meer van op als ik een aap zie die in je keuken probeert te komen. De rest van Zuidoost Azië is misschien wel minder ontwikkeld, maar zeker net zo mooi of zelfs mooier dan Singapore. Zo ben ik al naar Maleisië, Vietnam en Cambodja geweest. Alledrie toch prachtige landen en ik heb daar ervaringen opgedaan die ik niet verwacht zou hebben, zoals hond eten in Cambodia of in Vietnam in een villa in de jungle overnachten.

Wat goed te merken is, is dat Singapore een van de rijkste landen in de regio is. Als je in het centrum bent dan sta je tussen de hoge flats en banken, en zie je al snel het Marina Bay Sands, het hotel waar het net lijkt alsof er een schip op het dak ligt. Ook lijkt het wel of er overal iets nieuws gebouwd wordt; als het geen nieuw metrostation is, dan is het wel een nieuw winkelcentrum. Tussen al de

Genoeg over Singapore zelf en nu wat meer over mijn opdracht. Ik doe mijn stage aan de Nationale Universiteit van Singapore, oftewel NUS. Mijn stageopdracht gaat over bitstream relocation in FPGAs. Nu zal dat voor velen waarschijnlijk onbekend terrein zijn, dus ik zal het zo duidelijk mogelijk proberen te omschrijven. Om de flexibiliteit van FPGAs te vergroten, wordt er gebruik gemaakt van een

techniek genaamd Partial Reconfiguration. Dit houdt in dat je functionaliteit van een partitie tijdens run-time kan veranderen. Voordelen hiervan zijn dat je een kleinere FPGA kan gebruiken, als niet alle functionaliteit tegelijk nodig is. Verder kun je hier ook de fouttolerantie mee verbeteren, doordat je de module opnieuw in een partitie kan inladen. Het enige probleem is dat als je een ontwerp hebt waar meerdere partities in zitten, de modules die je ontwerpt per partitie uniek zijn. Dit vermindert de flexibiliteit en daarnaast neemt ook de benodigde opslagruimte toe. Dit kan dus opgelost worden door bitstream relocation toe te passen. Met behulp van bitstream relocation kan een bitstream in elke partitie geplaatst worden, ongeacht of hierin is geïmplementeerd. Dit wordt niet standaard ondersteund door Vivado, een programma van Xilinx om hardwareontwerpen mee te maken, dus ik ben een methode aan het ontwikkelen die dit mogelijk maakt in Vivado. Ondertussen loopt mijn stage ten einde en hoef ik alleen nog maar een presentatie te geven. Als ik zo terugkijk is het een mooie tijd geweest waar ik veel van heb geleerd en veel nieuwe ervaringen heb opgedaan. Maar voordat ik weer terug haar huis ga, ga ik eerst nog even van de zon genieten in Phuket en Bali.

March 2015| 23

IAssociation

57th Dies Natalis of Thor By: Birgit van Huijgevoort

T

he Dies is a week full of activities to celebrate Thor’s birthday. This year’s theme was ‘I love Holland’. In this article each activity will be revisited, so we can relive this awesome week once again.

Opening dies On November 28th 1957 the “Elektrotechnische Studievereniging Thor” was founded. This means that Thor can celebrate its 57th birthday already! Obviously, celebrating this can’t be done in just one day. Therefore we had a whole week of festivities, which was inaugurated with the traditional pie reception. This year many people were attracted to the large amount of pies and everybody had a good time.

crossbow toy, which resulted in lots of TAG-battles during the week. It definitely was joyful to witness them from the safe zone “het Bestuurshok”. The winner of the game was Wesley de Leeuw, he shot the most targets and therefore gained the most points. He did not only gain glory but also

Cantus During this yearly event the participants drank beer with their friends while, more importantly, singing together the traditional cantus songs. This year the songs varied from traditional Dutch songs such as “hoofd,

slices of gingerbread are hanging on a rope above your head and the goal is to jump and eat the gingerbread from the rope

ACCI TAG During the Dies opening the weapons and targets of the ACCI TAG were also handed out, which meant that the fuss of the Thor Assassination Game started. The ACCI TAG is an annual event with new weapons and sometimes even new rules every year. This year’s weapon was some kind of plastic

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a very special La Trappe beer card. Lester Manders became second and won a normal beer card.

schouders, knie en teen” (head, shoulders, knee and toe) to English classics such as “the Piano man”. The Praesidium was formed by Twan Kamp, Joost Greunsven, and Harm

Association I

Gijselhart. Their task was to keep a close eye on the participants of the cantus. Not everybody behaved well, which resulted in several punishments. In the end everybody went home satisfied.

Traditional Dutch Games This theme activity was lots of fun. A couple of teams competed during some real Dutch games, such as “Ezeltje prikje”. This sounds really stupid if you try to explain it; during this game you try to put the tail of a donkey on the correct place while blindfolded and by listening to the instructions of your fellow team members. Another game we played was “peperkoekhappen”; slices of gingerbread are hanging on a rope above your head and the goal is to jump and eat the gingerbread from the rope. The funniest game to watch was “spijkerpoepen”; the goal is to put a nail in a bottle. This may sound easy, but the nail is attached to a rope which is attached to your butt.

Flirt Workshop This workshop aimed at helping boys with flirting and was lots of fun. We learned how to approach people you like and also when and where. An example of a good place the presenter used a lot was in the train; you

aren’t doing anything most of the time, so this is the ideal moment for some chitchat and perhaps even some professional flirting.

Excursion Tata Steel This wonderful excursion to the Tata Steel site in IJmuiden was all about steel. We had a couple of very interesting presentations and an amazing bus tour, which made us realize how big the site actually is. The most impressive activity during our visit was the tour through the factory where they roll the metal. While walking through this enormous building, we saw how a thick piece of metal was being flattened. This requires lots of heat and water, which makes it very impressive to see and feel. The orange metal illuminated the whole area and it was as hot as a sauna. In the end everybody went home happy, some after a great dinner somewhere in Utrecht.

Film During the break on Thursday we enjoyed the movie “Die hard 4”, which has absolutely nothing to do with the theme “I love Holland”, but it definitely was fun. Popcorn and soda made this event complete and fun.

Dies Party

With a birthday of course comes a birthday party. Continuing the theme of the week, the Dies party has a blend of ‘I love Holland’; Het Walhalla was decorated in orange, and orange and green drinks were served. Obviously, lots of people were dressed in orange as well.

ACCI Hangover Breakfast The morning after the big Dies party the ACCI organized a very nice hangover breakfast to make sure everybody could start the day well. This went hand in hand with a nice cup of coffee to wake up the people who were tired of the big party.

Oude Bokken Borrel Also this year all the old Board members of Thor were invited to Het Walhalla to celebrate the Dies and prepare for the dinner.

Dies Dinner This year we went to the “Opwettense Watermolen”, which goes really well with the theme. The food was good and there were plenty of nice drinks. To end the evening, we went to Stratumseind to have the last drinks of the 57th Dies. Once again the Dies felt like one big party!

March 2015| 25

IVaria

The Langobards

By: Fer Radstake “If we go to war we will surely lose,” the lawspeaker said. “The Vandals have the favour of Odin. As his loyal subjects, he shall grant them victory. Let’s pay the tribute!” And most villagers voiced their agreement. “But we are the favourites of Frigg!” a young woman called Gambara suddenly exclaimed. “Yes, we are,” the old and wise lawspeaker said, amazed at the woman suddenly joining in the conversation, which was up-until-then dominated by elderly men. “But Odin is the god of war; his blessing will surely win every battle. Frigg is but the goddess of love and fertility!” “Don’t underestimate Frigg! She’s the wife of Odin, she knows him like no-one else! I’m sure she can come up with something to make us win!”

Odin and Frigg look down at the Winnili.

T

he Potentiaal building was growing old. Although Flux is frankly far too small, it was time to leave our old habitat. Much like our forefathers did around the beginning of the Common Era. When during the Iron age the climate cooled down and the forests and lush fields of green Scandinavia started to turn into barren wasteland, more and more of the Germanic peoples moved south towards warmer lands. They drove off the previous Celtic inhabitants and in the absence of a common enemy soon found themselves warring amongst each other. Where many of the larger tribes succeeded in dominating and exploiting their neighbours, the smaller tribes often forged alliances to defend themselves. Many of these confederations proved long-lasting and eventually became some of today’s better-known Germanic “tribes”: the famous Franks, Saxons and Alemanni all were alliances rather than single tribes. One of the tribes forming the large Suebi confederation was the Langobards (“Long-beards”). At first a fierce but small tribe, they rose to fame when in 568 CE they conquered a large part of Northern Italy (hence the name “Lombardy” for the present-day Italian region).

1 2

In the late 8th century, a Langobard monk composed a history of his people. Although he thought the old Pagan stories of his people laughable, this luckily didn’t deter him from writing some of them down. Together with a 7th century manuscript, it tells us the wonderful story of how the tribe’s name came to be. Besides providing us with a beautiful legend, it also tells us about the hardships a small tribe had to endure in new lands where almost everyone was hostile.

After hours of deliberation a decision was made: the Winnili would go to war. Spears were sharpened and men trained for what everyone expected would be the last battle of the Winnili.

Long ago, in the vast bogs and forests of Northern Germania lived a tribe named the Winnili. They had recently migrated south from Scandinavia, until they had reached the area around the Elbe River. Under the goddess Frigg’s blessing, they lived happily for a few years and had good harvests from the fertile soil. Then, on a bad day, a messenger from the neighbouring tribe of the Vandals1 entered their village and handed the townsmen an ultimatum. The Winnili were to pay them tribute, or the Vandals would send their huge army towards them. The Winnili immediately convened a thing2 to decide on what to do next. The two chieftains Ybor and Agio stepped forward first. “What good are our lives, if we’re but slaves to the Vandals? Let us rather die, than stain our honour by paying tribute!”

The same tribe that in 455 CE would sack Rome, the origin of the word “vandal” The largely democratic people’s assembly

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“Let’s hope so,” the lawspeaker mumbled as Gambara’s words were drowned in the noise of yet another argument.

Langobard fibula from the late 6th century.

Varia I

The Winnili women with their “bearded” heads. Far away in Asgard, Frigg had heard Gambara’s words and, touched by the woman’s unfaltering trust in her, vowed she would help. But when she went to her husband, the god proved unwilling to grant victory to the Winnili. After much persuasion, Odin finally said that the warriors he would see first when waking up on the morning of the battle would win. But Frigg knew her husband well enough to understand he tried to trick her: Odin knew the location of the Vandal camp, so he’d look in that direction when he’d wake up. And in the unlikely case that the warriors he’d see were Winnili, he’d simply deny he had seen them. That night a thunderstorm raged above the hills surrounding the village. Heavy rain assaulted the thatched roofs and forced the villagers deep into the shelter of their homes. But amongst the cover of the rain descended Frigg, and silently entered the small farm where Gambara laid on her simple bed, trying to sleep. A sudden lightning strike revealed the goddess’s silhouette and the startled woman instantly sat up straight in her bed. This was the moment the goddess had waited for, and with her firm but friendly voice she spoke to the brave girl and told her of her plans. Then suddenly Frigg was gone, just as quickly as she had appeared, and with her the rain went. Back in Asgard, Odin was sound asleep when his wife returned and he didn’t notice her turning the bed around. Now the bed was directed to the opposite side, so that when Odin woke up, he would look straight at the Winnili camp. When Gambara awoke the following morning, there still was the faint smell of ozone in the air and water was still dripping from the roofs and trees onto the muddy ground. But there was no time to wait for the mud to dry and the deep puddles to disappear. Hastily Gambara ran to her neighbour’s house, then to the next, until she had visited every house in the village and had assembled every woman at Frigg’s grove nearby.

“Tonight, Frigg came to me. She told me our tribe will win the war, but only if you do exactly as I say! Tomorrow morning, before the battle, you must get up before dawn. Don’t wear your dress, but put on men’s clothes. Then drape your hair in front of your face, as if it were a beard or a moustache. Take up a shield and a sword, axe or spear, as if you were a warrior, and follow me!”“Why?” a young girl asked, and with a mysterious smile Gambara answered: “You will see...” The morning sun shining on his face woke Odin up. As he opened his eyes, he remembered to look to his right, in the direction of the Vandal camp. Atop a hill stood an army, and as he focused his eyes he noticed that every single one of them wore a huge beard. Amazed he asked: “Who are those longbearded men?”, thereby betraying he had seen them. “Ah, so those are the first you see this morning?”, his wife answered. “Those, my love, are the Winnili!” On the hilltop, the women freed their hair as they watched the battle unfold. Just an hour ago, the two armies had met in the valley.

Their champion had met the Vandal champion in a duel, and was slain. Then spears were thrown and the two hosts raced towards each other. It was an impressive sight, the huge invading army outnumbering theirs two to one, and very frightful to behold. One by one the Winnili fell and for a moment it had looked as if their tribe would be annihilated. But then suddenly each one of their soldiers seemed to possess the strength of a bear, as at the same time a wave of exhaustion raced through the hostile ranks. Vandal blood coloured the ground red as shields shattered and before long the enemies that were still standing retreated into the forests. It was only a short while later, that a merchant from another tribe visited the great feasts the Winnili were holding. He asked what the festivities were all about, and the Winnili told their guest the whole story. The merchant could only agree that the “long-bearded” women had shown great wits and courage, and in their honour the tribe was from that moment on known as the Long-Beards.

Glass drinking horn from the late 6th century

March 2015| 27

IDepartment

Energy out of Thin Air By: Huib Visser

Introduction In December 2014 I presented my inaugural lecture for the chair “Wireless Data and Power Transfer for Miniature and EnvironmentIndependent Electronics”. In these few pages I’d like to summarize this lecture to highlight the contents and challenges encountered in the field of wireless energy and power transfer, i.e. Energy out of Thin Air. I will start with a brief history of radio, followed by a brief history of Wireless Power Transfer (WPT). Then I’ll discuss the state of the art, followed by the challenges encountered in further developing WPT.

A Brief History of Radio I let the history start in the post-Volta era. With the introduction of the Voltaic pile or battery it became possible to conduct electrical experiments in a controlled and repeatable way.

The post-Volta era It was with a Voltaic pile that Ørsted observed in 1819 that a wire carrying an electric current changes the position of a nearby compass needle. This interaction of electricity and magnetism he termed electromagnetism. In 1819 Ampère explained the experiment: the electric current induces a magnetic field. In 1831 Faraday observed that a changing electric current in a coil induced an electric current in another coil. The changing electric field in the first coil induced a magnetic field and this changing magnetic field induced an electric field in the second coil. Faraday had discovered electromagnetic induction. Later, he showed that a moving magnet induces an electric field in a coil, see Figure 1.

Figure 1: A changing magnetic field induces an electric current in a loop [1].

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So, electricity was understood, magnetism was understood and one was aware of an interaction between the two, but a complete understanding had not yet developed.

Maxwell In 1873 Maxwell published “A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism” [2] in which he formulated the Maxwell equations, relating electricity and magnetism, see Figure 2. The Maxwell equations consist of the Gauss law for electricity, relating a static electric field to charges, the Gauss law for magnetism, stating that magnetic charges do not exist, Faradays law of induction, describing how a varying magnetic field creates an electric field, and a modified version of Ampère’s law. Maxwell’s contribution is the modification that states that a magnetic field may be generated also by a changing electric field. It is this latter aspect that makes the existence of electromagnetic waves possible. It means that once you create the correct changing electric field (i.e. accelerate charge), this field will create a changing magnetic field that, in turn, will create a changing electric field and so on, see Figure 3. This expansion of the disturbance in space will continue, even when the source has ceased to exist. This is what we call wave propagation.

Hertz In 1886 Hertz experimentally verified Maxwell’s theory. He connected a pair of straight wires to a spark gap. The spark gap was connected to the secondary windings of an induction coil that was operated by a mechanical interrupter. The straight wires were equipped with electrically conducting spheres able to move over the wire segments.

Figure 2: The Maxwell equations. He thus created a transmitting resonance circuit consisting of the straight wire segments and the conducting spheres. As a receiver Hertz used a single turn coil with a small gap. By adjusting the perimeter of this one-turn coil, he was able to demonstrate resonance. With the receiver placed several meters from the transmitter, small sparks could be seen in the gap of the receiver when the transmitter discharged. The two wire segments at the transmitter we recognize as a half-wave dipole antenna. The receiver is recognized as a loop antenna, see Figure 4.

Marconi Marconi saw the practical and commercial potential of Hertz’s invention and started repeating the experiments. He succeeded in improving the coherer, an electromagnetic detection device. The coherer replaced the receiving spark-gap and acted as a switch turning on a battery-operated Morse writer. By finding the ‘right’ antenna he succeeded in creating a radio system at sub-GHz frequencies and over distances that progressively increased up to and beyond 1.5 km, see Figure 5.

Figure 3: Two-dimensional schematic representation of wave propagation [1].

Department I dipole antenna was connected to a light bulb that was powered to distances up to 12 m. Since human body temperature increases by 1 degree per minute within this range, the demonstrations must have been very short. After this demonstration interest in WPT diminished. The reason for this was the inability at that time to focus energy of sufficient power. This became possible after the Second World War when high-power microwave sources became available.

Brown

Figure 4: Hertz’s open resonance system [1]. In 1896 he went to Great Britain where he cooperated with the British Post Office. In 1897 messages were exchanged over a distance of 14 km and in 1899 a regular radio-telegraph service between England and France was put into service. In 1901 Marconi succeeded in conducting the first transatlantic transmission. In 1909 he received the Nobel Prize for physics, together with Karl Ferdinand Braun [4]. The success of Marconi started with the use of long wavelengths and appropriate antennas. These antennas were found by trial and error. Marconi was more of an entrepreneur than an academic scientist. One of his strengths, however, was to employ scientists in the Marconi Company. In 1900 he approved Ambrose Fleming as scientific adviser. It was Fleming who in 1906 gave a mathematical explanation of the monopole antenna operation. It is assumed that this was the first time that an antenna design had been accomplished both experimentally and theoretically. Since then developments followed one another quickly, resulting in radio as we know it today.

Wireless Power Transfer When Hertz made his first radio transmission, he was transferring not only data but also power, both visible in the received sparks. The idea of transferring power wirelessly may be attributed to Nikola Tesla.

Tesla Most of the reports on Tesla’s contributions to wireless transfer of data and power are factually challenged. Fact is that Tesla wanted to create wireless power transfer, but he was convinced that Hertzian waves were actually a loss mechanism [5]. According to Tesla the power and data transfer was accomplished through currents flowing through the Earth and through a rarefied air layer acting as return ‘wire’. Tesla created high-voltage transformers that are shown in photographs of his laboratories, see Figure 6, but he was not able to demonstrate his power-transfer system. The patents filed for his system [6, 7] show equipment similar to Marconi’s 1895 wireless telegraph [8], see Figure 5, which may account for (erroneously) attributing the invention of radio telegraphy to Tesla. The widespread belief that the United States Supreme Court overturned all of Marconi’s patents in 1943 and proclaimed Tesla as the ‘true inventor’ of radio telegraphy is not true [9].

In 1964, Brown demonstrated a microwavepowered model helicopter [10, 11]. In this demonstration the transmitter was a 2.45 GHz, 5 kW magnetron connected to a 3 m diameter parabolic reflector antenna. The helicopter flew at a height of 9 m and collected 270 W peak dc power from a 1.5 m2 antenna containing 4480 diodes. This project was the basis for the Solar-Power Satellite (SPS) concept [12], which comprises capturing the sun’s radiation by photovoltaic cells on a satellite that is in geosynchronous orbit, converting this into RF microwave power and beaming this to Earth where it is converted into usable electrical power. The SPS concept is still being studied, especially in Japan.

The renewed interest In the past decade, interest in WPT has been reignited and comprises non-radiative WPT for short distance and radiative WPT for long distance. The reason for the renewed interest in radiative WPT is due to the success of radio frequency identification (RFID) and recent advances in realizing (ultra) low-power electronics. With wireless sensors demanding average dc power in the range of tens of microwatts, it has become feasible to power these sensors from a central broadcasting station transmitting within the legal

Noble The first successful experiment in wireless power transfer (WPT) using radio waves was undertaken at the Westinghouse Laboratory by Noble. This experiment was the basis for a WPT demonstration at the Chicago World Fair of 1933-1934, see Figure 7. Figure 5: Marconi’s antennas in 1895. a. Diagram of the Marconi transmitter. b. Diagram of the Marconi receiver [1].

In this demonstration, 15 kW of power was transmitted by an overhead 100 MHz, halfwavelength dipole antenna. The receiving

Figure 6: Multiple exposure of Tesla’s Colorado Springs Laboratory.

March 2015| 29

IDepartment • The transmit antenna. Should be adaptively multi-beam for using constructive reflection interference of the environment. • The propagation channel. Could be modified for generating desired reflections and absorptions or for guiding surface waves.

Figure 7: Noble demonstrating radiative WPT (press photograph 1931). power limits. For the year 2020 the World Wireless Research Forum (WWRF) estimates that seven trillion wireless devices will serve seven billion people [13]. Near future applications are envisaged in the field of smart factories and homes and in logistics, see Figure 8. Research is concentrated on the receiver, which in its most basic form consists of an antenna that is connected to a rectifier (rectenna). The antenna intercepts a part of the RF signal broadcasted by the transmitter and this signal is converted to a dc signal using a diode-based circuit and used to power an application. The basic rectenna may be improved by adding impedance matching networks, power-management circuits and energy storage devices (capacitors or rechargeable batteries), see Figure 9.

The research should be conducted in national and international cooperation. An important platform is the European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) Action IC1301 Wireless Power Transmission for Sustainable Electronics (WIPE).

[6] N. Tesla, System of Transmission of Electrical Energy, USA Patent No. 645,576, March 20, 1900.

Summary and Conclusion

[7] N. Tesla, Apparatus for Transmission of Electrical Energy, USA Patent No. 649,621, May 15, 1900.

We see that non-radiative WPT has come of age and that radiative WPT has become feasible for lower transmit power levels. We are at the brink of commercializing radiative WPT technology. The field offers plenty of opportunities for cooperation in the field of (integrated) electronics, sensor and system technology. Furthermore, for all aspects of the research, internship and MSc projects can be defined, tailored to a student’s ambitions and interests.

[8] Guglielmo Marconi - Nobel Lecture: Wireless Telegraphic Communication”. Nobelprize.org. Nobel Media AB 2014. Web. 30 Oct 2014. http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_ prizes/physics/laureates/1909/marconi-lecture.html [9] Justia US Supreme Court, Marconi Wireless Tel. Co. v. United States 320 U.S. 1 (1943), Web. 30 Oct 2014. https:// supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/320/1/case.html [10] W. Brown, J.R. Mims, and N.I. Heeman, “An Experimental Microwave-Powered Helicopter”, Proceedings IRECON, 1965, pp. 225-235. [11] W. Brown, “The History of Power Transmission by Radio Waves”, IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and techniques, Vol. MTT-32, No. 9, 1984, pp. 1230-1242.

References

[12] P. Glaser, “Power from the Sun: Its Future”, Science Magazine, Vol. 162, November 1968, pp. 857-861.

[1] H. Visser, Array and Phased Array Antenna Basics, John

[13] L. Sørensen and K. Skouby, “User Scenarios 2020 – a Worldwide Wireless Future”, WWRF Outlook, Wireless World Research Forum, No. 4, July 2009.

Wiley & Sons, 2005.

Non-radiative coupling

[2] J. Maxwell, A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism, Dover Publications, 1954.

Inductive, non-radiative, power transfer uses coils both for transmitting and for receiving. By introducing resonance in 2008 [14], it has become feasible to transfer power efficiently over short distances. The technology is used nowadays for charging the batteries of power-hungry mobile devices like smart phones using the Qi standard [15].

[3] G. Marconi, “The Most Recent Developments of Wireless Telegraphy”, De Ingenieur, Nr. 22, May 1909, pp. 431-439. [4] “The Nobel Prize in Physics 1909”. Nobelprize.org. Nobel Media AB 2014. Web. 30 Oct 2014. http://www.nobelprize. org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1909/ [5] N. Tesla, “The True Wireless”, The Electrical Experimenter, May 1919, pp. 28-13, 61-63, 87.

Future Research The radiative WPT technology is far from fully developed. With respect to Figure 9, we can identify the following elements for improvement: • The antenna. Needs to be physically small, matched to the front-end, be used for both data and power transfer and be independent of the immediate environment. Should ideally be capable of being used for non-radiative and radiative power transfer; • The rectifier. Needs to be modeled and designed for changing input powers and loads and changing and multiple input frequencies; Figure 9: Radiative WPT system.

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Figure 8: Artist impression of the employment of wirelessly powered sensors in a greenhouse.

[14] A. Karalis et al., “Efficient Wireless Non-Radiative Mid-Range Energy Transfer”, Annals of Physics, Vol. 323, No. 1, January 2008, pp. 34-48. [15] Wireless Power consortium. Web. 30 Oct 2014. http:// www.wirelesspowerconsortium.com/ [16] H. Visser, Antenna Arrangement for Wireless Powering, United States Patent Application US 2014/0176082 01, 26 June 2014.

Association I

Symposium on Photonics By: Joost van der Woerd

O

n 2 December 2014, the Electrical Engineering study association Thor hosted a symposium titled ‘Photonics, a key enabling technology’. The program consisted of six lectures, an info market and a workshop. Through the diversity in the lectures, the symposium offered attendees a broad but insightful day on the developments and possibilities of photonic technologies. Around 70 people attended the symposium. Particularly the Photonic Integration group was well represented. The symposium kicked off with an introduction from the chairman of the day, Kevin Williams, and an introductory lecture on integrated photonics by Mike Wale. In his lecture he showed the basic building blocks for optics, to manipulate the phase, amplitude and polarization of a light beam. As internet traffic grows by around 50% per year, this revolution in communication can be sustained with photonics. After a small break, Ronald Broeke of BRIGHT Photonics gave a lecture on photonic chip materials. As each material has its advantages and disadvantages, Ronald Broeke explained which materials were best suited

for certain applications. He also gave insight in the design procedure, to make a packaged PIC (Photonic Integrated Circuit) from an application idea. Afterwards Boudewijn Doctor of EFFECT Photonics gave a lecture on PICs in telecommunication networks. The demand for faster data transfers, whilst decreasing energy consumption, is tackled with PICs. Bandwidth can be increased by using multiple wavelengths for example. It became very clear that telecommunication companies and end users can greatly benefit from this. The lecture given by Jeroen Duis from TE Connectivity focused on commercially available photonic solutions and how TE is achieving more and more in that regard. The future datacenter and high performance computing requirements were transferred into a next generation connectivity platform. Technological feats of this ‘Coolbit’ platform were explained. The lecture concluded with the award ceremony for the best paper from a course of Kevin Williams. After the fourth lecture it was time for the lunch and the info market, where many attendees were impressed by the sight of a 3D

television at the stand of Tegema, but also the stand of Avantes and the Photonic Integration group received plenty of attention. After the lunch the fifth lecture commenced. Pim Kat of Technobis gave insight in fiber-optic sensing technologies and the astounding accuracy and sensitivity they achieved with the ladybug chips. Problems and solutions during the development were explained, which made it clear that the lady bug chip is a remarkable technological feat. After this lecture, Hans Vermeulen from ASML talked about high-end photonics for IC fabrication. It also detailed how the ladybug chip was used in ASML technology. In the second half of the lecture Hans Vermeulen gave insight on how photonics is used in lithography systems. The last event of the day actively involved the attendees. Martin van Acht and Roy Derks from Tegema gave an introduction of Tegema’s projects. They challenged the attendees to find a way to place and connect 2000 optical fibers close together. The attendees were split into groups to brainstorm for solutions. During the brainstorm some glass fibers, photonic chips and the mounting plate for the fibers were passed around to stress the scale of the problem. The holes where the glass fibers had to be placed in were barely visible. In the end there were a lot of diverse solutions. All the groups presented them and Tegema explained their solution and the challenges they face in the optimization of the system. The symposium concluded with a summary of the day by the chairman and the committee thanked the participants and lecturers for a great day. Afterwards everyone gathered for the concluding drink.

March 2015| 31

IPUZZLE

Puzzle New puzzle Previous puzzle The winner of the previous puzzle is Thymen Rijpkema.

Objective / Rules: • Complete the grid such that every row and column contains the digits 1 to 6. •

All squares that are connected contain the same digit.

Please send your answer to [email protected] before 10 April.

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Varia I

The way we work in Flux By: Corine Spoor – Kolvenbag

F

lux is finished!

Well, that is if you are using the term “finished” fairly loosely. The building construction is completed, many of the occupants have moved in, and everyone is trying to find their footing. Each morning, I join colleagues from Real Estate Management, the Supervisor of the Move, the Cluster Coordinator from Internal Affairs, and BAM for a status meeting. We will continue to come together for as long as is necessary, because we have found that this approach works: we are right on top of developments and are able to respond extremely quickly to any defects or questions and wishes put forward by the occupants. We are working hard on dealing with all of the issues, as the performance of the building will, of course, partially affect the extent to which we all feel at home in it. But the way the building works for us is not the only factor: the type of atmosphere we will have in Flux is something that is up to us, the occupants of the building. How do we want to interact with each other? What arrangements do we want to make? How are we all going to work and study together in Flux? The headline for this, my second column in Connecthor, has a ring of determination and confidence to it: “The way we work in Flux.” This is how we work—period. No arguments, no questions. It sounds as if we all came together for a staff meeting, locked the door, and by the end of the day had put together a list of working procedures with which we were all happy. But that is not how things work. To start with, there are simply too many of us to make that possible. And we are all quite different, too. That diversity is actually a very good thing, as it is this that will bring about great results, through the way we work together. I am fully convinced of that. But how can we define the way we work in Flux? I was thinking about this as I was driving home in my car. My thoughts were then suddenly interrupted by what I saw happening just in front of me: An old man was about to cross the road, but the driver in front of me clearly had no intention of letting him do so. The man, who had a shopper tote on wheels and a walking stick, stepped out onto the road anyway. The driver in front of me slammed his foot on the brakes, requiring me to do the

same. He then made a not entirely friendly gesture in the direction of the shocked pedestrian, who immediately demonstrated how he felt about it. Another driver, who had witnessed the incident, then responded to show how she felt about the driver who had refused to stop for the man. In short, angry faces and choice words all around. It was then that I realized that road traffic could serve wonderfully well as a metaphor for the way we work in Flux. Inspired by this example of how not to do things, I think that I am now able to provide a few pointers that will be important as we seek to find the Flux way of working. Each is summed up by a single word.

Together Traffic brings together drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians, and together we all make use of Flux. This involves our making intensive use of a limited amount of space, which means that we will often be running into each other (in a good way). We bear responsibilities together and have many goals in common. If we can talk openly about how other people’s behavior affects us, then we can start a dialog. Mutual respect is what will make this work, and we will not even necessarily need to discuss things at length.

Expectations Each of us has expectations regarding our fellow “road users”, whether we are aware of these expectations or not. If we let each other know what our expectations are, then we will all be able to prepare for them. In a traffic situation, some things are implicit. The old man, for example, probably thought that he would be given right of way owing to his age and his walking difficulties; the driver was perhaps in a hurry and expected the old man to show some understanding of that fact. But neither party expressed, nor was able to express, their expectations. Fortunately, we will be able to be explicit about our expectations in Flux.

enforce the “rules.” As far as I am concerned, Flux has no rules—only agreements. It’s just a matter of semantics. The scene played out just in front of my car shows that being together, armed with our expectations and agreements, is not always quite enough. Sometimes a little more is needed, something that it is not so easy to put down in black and white. Let us just call it a feeling—that feeling that we are openminded towards others, that we empathize with others and that we can expect others to behave in the same way towards us. Personally, I see this as being the “Flux feeling” that forms the basis for “the way we work in Flux.” What I have seen and experienced so far is worthy of praise. Despite the fact that work is still going on and not everything is working as it ultimately should, Flux occupants have generally shown understanding and patience for the situation and are expressing their confidence in everything turning out well in the end. Discussing whether the old man had the right of way is pointless. But let me go back to that particular car journey. When I was almost home, I came across a stationary truck in the middle of the road. A man was unloading a number of boxes and made an apologetic gesture in my direction. A car behind was hooting its horn. I smiled at the man, and got the impression that this made him happy. And then I understood: “The way we work in Flux” is no different from the way we work in life!

Agreements For road users there is a basic set of rules to be obeyed, and the same applies to Flux. The waste separation agreement is an example. We will also be making other agreements with each other. Often, these will be clear and obvious for everyone involved, and will make it easy for us to find our way. What is great about Flux is that there is no official body to

March 2015| 33

IVaria

Een jaar geen student

Door: Steven Nelemans

Alsof het gisteren was, zo herinner ik het me. Het moment dat ik plaats nam in de vergadering die bedoeld was om nieuwe studenten kennis te laten maken met het Automotive studententeam TU/ecomotive. Als normale student, bezig met het halen van zoveel mogelijk studiepunten, had ik geen idee wat mij te wachten zou staan. Nooit had ik gedacht dat er in een half jaar tijd zoveel kan gebeuren.

E

en studententeam is een initiatief van studenten, ontstaan uit de behoefte om iets meer te doen dan alleen studeren. TU/ecomotive is ontstaan bij de Shell Eco-marathon, een zuinigheidswedstrijd in Rotterdam. Bij alle auto’s die daar rondrijden, vooral overdekte ligfietsen, zijn de woorden ‘comfort’ en ‘maatschappelijke waarde’ nog niet bekend. Om te bewijzen dat er verder kan worden gegaan dan de regels van de Shell Eco-marathon, zodat er wel degelijk maatschappelijke waarde ontstaat, is TU/ecomotive in het leven geroepen. Door de zelfontwikkelde auto RDW te laten keuren, kan iedereen zien dat hyper-efficiëntie wel degelijk mogelijk is. Mede hierdoor is vorig jaar Isa ontwikkeld, met een verbruik van 1 op 400 de zuinigste stadsauto ter wereld. Het mooie aan studentenprojecten vind ik de zelfstandigheid. Nadat het initiatief genomen is, sta je er, samen met je team, alleen voor. Zowel de werving, het gehele proces van ontwikkeling tot productie en testen, de financiering, de publiciteit van het project, alles moet door studenten zelf

Isa met de André Kuipers

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Het is helaas niet altijd rozengeur en maneschijn bij een studententeam. Omdat veel bedrijven vermogens investeren in het verwezenlijken van je zelfbedachte concept, is de druk om te slagen enorm. Wij studenten, optimistisch als we zijn, leggen de lat dan ook graag erg hoog. Dit betekent dat een studententeam veel tijd inneemt en dat ik als tweedejaars student al een jaar studievertraging te pakken heb. Gelukkig sprak ik, nadat ik hierachter kwam, met iemand van NXP. Deze man vertelde mij, dat wanneer ze moesten kiezen tussen iemand die nominaal afstudeert of iemand die een studententeam heeft gedaan, het een gemakkelijke keuze was.

verwezenlijkt worden. Mede omdat dit een project zeer lastig maakt, is dit het onderdeel waar iedereen het meeste van leert. Het zelfstandige brengt ook een heel aantal voordelen met zich mee. Omdat zaken als sponsoring bijvoorbeeld ook zelf geregeld moeten worden, kom je op plaatsen waar je als student anders eigenlijk nooit komt. De ene week ontmoet je minister Schultz-van Haegen en de andere week drink je een biertje met André Kuipers. Zelfs directeuren van de grootste bedrijven maken maar al te graag tijd vrij om te luisteren naar jouw verhaal. Je leert enorm veel mensen kennen, en wat eigenlijk nog veel belangrijker is: mensen leren jou kennen. Als klap op de vuurpijl werd ik een tijd geleden opgebeld door iemand van de Nederlandse ambassade in Turkije, met de vraag of wij zin en tijd hadden om voor een week naar Istanbul te komen. Nadat wij in ons enthousiasme hadden toegestemd, kwam de volgende vraag: oh ja, denk je dat dat binnen drie weken gaat lukken? Na drie weken stress en slapeloze nachten is het toch gelukt om zowel voertuig als teamleden in Istanbul te krijgen. Dat hebben we mogen vieren op de Turkey Innovation Week met de Nederlandse ambassadeur, de burgemeester van Istanbul en veel Dürum Kebab.

Een projectjaar bij TU/ecomotive duurt maar negen maanden. Ondanks dat ik, gelukkig, nog even te gaan heb, zijn we alweer bezig met het zoeken naar een nieuwe lading enthousiaste studenten die volgend jaar TU/ecomotive gaan vertegenwoordigen. Dan heb ik het (pijnlijke) genoegen toe te kijken hoe zij verder gaan in de zoektocht naar de auto van de toekomst.

Isa met de burgemeester

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Location of groups in Flux

Work on challenging projects at Sioux Sioux bounds genuine interest in passionate people with high tech performance. As an innovative technology partner we support leading high tech companies in the Brainport region and far beyond with the development and manufacturing of their products. Centre of this all are our 400 dedicated engineers in Technical Software, Mechatronics, Electronics, Industrial Mathematics and Remote Solutions.

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