On the 5th of October, the symposium committee of S.G. Daedalus organizes the symposium “Celebrate the Future” at the University of Twente.

Theme

After undergoing a worldwide pandemic, everyone is trying to innovate and be ahead of their competitors. From the smaller businesses trying to optimize their workplace, using more sustainable products and trying to stand out from the competition to the multinational companies that are doing everything they can to build a better future for the coming generations.

“Celebrate the Future” is focused on innovating for the future, in every possible aspect of our lives, as well as celebrating the success of change, improvement, and effort to make this a better world.

 

The study association

The study association S.G. Daedalus offers its members great opportunities to improve their skills, gain experience and orientate themselves in the professional field. The association organizes lectures, excursions and symposia like these to get in touch with companies and show students career opportunities. Our goal is to broaden their horizons and show them the possibilities and opportunities they can have.

 

What to expect from the symposium

A symposium is all about getting to know new people and subjects. By introducing our students to companies and together exploring the field of Industrial Design Engineering (IDE). We want our fellow students to get in touch with the different career opportunities. Companies can get in touch with students which are looking for bachelor or master assignments.

 

How can you take part in the symposium as a company?

There are different ways that you can help and take part in this event as a company:

–             Organising a workshop for the students that are going to participate

–             Giving a presentation about your company about who you are, what you do, and your plans for the future…

–             Having a company stand and show your company to our students in a more personal way

–             Sponsoring the symposium to help us make this event possible

 

Contact information

If you feel like working together, if you would like to receive more information on a certain subject, or if you would like to speak to one of us personally, please feel free to contact us.

Email: symposium.sgdaedalus@gmail.com

Telephone: 053-489 4439

Annemieke lives in Weesp and has two children. She is currently working at Wunderman Thompson, which is a creative agency, consultancy and technology company. Next to this she likes to keep herself busy with all kinds of creative things like making things together with her children.

Annemieke was part of the first group of IDE students of the UT. She had already finished one year of Civil Engineering when she transferred over to Industrial Design the next year. She made this choice because Civil Engineering was not creative enough for her. In the end she did the master Design and Styling, 

which was one of the available master tracks back then. At this time the whole study was naturally very new, so it was even more broad then it is now.

At the time she was working on her thesis she was using an outlook agenda, which in her opinion didn’t work optimally.
So she designed a digital notebook with apps on it on which she kept her notes and appointments. In this way she created a very visual, digital agenda. This worked similar to the iPhone agendas right now.
Because of this, her interest in UI design grew vastly, which we will find out more about later.

She did her graduation internship at a design agency in Den Haag, Spirit, which does not exist anymore. This company was the developer of the Secrid miniwallets, a product which, by now, we have probably all heard of. Only years later, after Annemieke had already left the company, the Secrid 

miniwallet became successful and developed to how we know it today.
While working at this company, Annemiekes main occupation was to visit other companies and show them what the agency could offer them. Next to that she also designed bags and packages for Sitecom routers. But when their biggest client, Maxi Cosi, decided to start designing for themselves, the agency more or less collapsed and Annemieke chose to leave.
She then started working at a start-up, Mobihealth. They had developed an app and they asked her to design a nice interface for it. At the time she worked three days in a week, because she was working on a PhD at the University at the same time. Unfortunately this was very hard to combine, so she did not finish the PhD. It is still on her list though!
While working at Mobihealth she got more and more into UI/UX design and this got the attention of Eperium (which was bought by Wunderman Thompson later on). Initially the company was not entirely sure about hiring her, because while she had the right background, she did not yet have the experience they were looking for. But after having a beer on a terrace with someone from the company, they hired her anyway. The experience that she needed, she could gain from her colleague.
Initially the companies main occupation was building websites for other companies. Annemieke got to know two ways of working, waterfall and agile. Waterfall means that all requirements are set at the start and are then worked out in one go. Agile means that everything goes little by little. With agile it is way easier to react to unexpected things you come across on the way, although it is harder to keep the total overview. Therefore they evolved into a method in which you do have an idea of the result and then implement this in parts. This works well with testing too, because you can do some tweaking inbetween. She developed such a fondness for this method (Scrum) that she decided to develop a scrum training to teach this way of working to the rest of the company. This drive to be able to work together with everyone came from the study. As an IDE’er you have the capabilities to be the translator between multiple disciplines. This comes in handy while companies work with a lot of different disciplines, countries and cultures. Other aspects of the study she often uses for her work are being able to get out of your comfort zone and think out of the box, design sketching and design for specific users.

As mentioned before the study Industrial Design back then was brand new, so a lot of things had still to be tried out.  This caused some courses to be way too hard, while others were too easy. Annemieke had some trouble with the programming in Java, but she always really enjoyed the prototype making. Meanwhile she has discovered that knowing how to use SolidWorks is quite a valuable skill. She liked SolidWorks during the study, but always found it pretty complicated. She wished she would have tried a bit harder with SolidWorks back then, that would have come in handy right now.
She always experienced it positively that the study is so broad, even though she knows not everyone shares that opinion.

During the founding of Daedalus she doubted whether she would join the first board or not. But she was already active at Audentis at the time, so she decided not to. At first she was actually anti-student associations. But because the year she did Civil Engineering consisted of 90 boys and only 10 girls, she joined a do-group which had other girls. This was an Audentis do-group.
She was also active within Daedalus in a couple of committees like Excom. After a while she also started a new fraternity at Audentis. Just like the founding of IDE and Daedalus, this was also a new beginning. She says this kinda is the red thread of her life.
She also worked at the Study Informationcentre at the time. This was run entirely by students. They would attend study shows and represent the UT. At the UT a whole lot is done by the students themselves, that’s what she likes so much about the UT. All the things you do next to your study is exactly what you learn a lot from according to Annemieke.

She looks back positively on her study time. She says that most people think that when you have finished studying you are ready for real life, but this is not exactly the case. You still have to find your way, wherever you go. She would have liked it if the study would have focused some more on how to find a job that fits you, because a lot of people struggle with this.

She really enjoyed working in groups, unless it was a group that could not work together well. But this is something you have to learn as well, she says. You will probably encounter this in your job sometime as well.
The relationship between the students and teachers was very informal. There were only about 30 students in Industrial Design at the time, which was okay since they only had one room in the Horst Tower in which they had to do everything.

She found discovering new ideas and experimenting with them the nicest aspect of the study. During her study, she developed the idea of the Wii with some fellow students before the Wii was even a thing. Their reasoning was that if you could control the tv from a distance with a remote that this should also be possible in a game by use of a sensor. Everyone at the study had his or her own strength and combining these produced nice results.

She says that she learned a lot about politics after finishing her study, but she also learned that nobody really knows what they are doing. This is not always a bad thing though, while everything you do has value. Her best tip is to learn as much from each other as you can. In a study as IDE, everyone has their own strength, but you should actually pick up tasks which you are not as good at yet. Maybe even ask someone else who ís good at it to work on it together. In this way you can keep developing yourself.

The ET Faculty Council is known! Since only 5 people signed up and 5 seats are available no vote took place and they where automatically elected.

The student representatives for 1-09-2021 till 01-09-2022 are:

Alexander Jansen (IDE)
Maarten Verboom (CE)
Nick van Nijen (CE)
Caitlin Reichardt (ME)
Koen Geurtsen (ME)

 

The staff representatives for 1-09-2021 till 01-09-2022 are:

Jos de Lange
Dave Matthews
Wouter Grouve
Robbert-Jan Torn
Miguel Muñoz Rojo

To encourage students to explore the field of IDE and introduce them to different design philosophies and styles, the Broaden your Horizon days will be organized throughout the year by the board. The Broaden your Horizon days aim to make students aware that they can have an impact on their environment and the world with their work because IDE students are the designers of the future. This will be done through themed lunch lectures, activities and by providing information on the subject. Every module there will be two days in the theme of one design philosophy or style, so four themes will be discussed in total this year.

 

Chaotic/Extraordinary design

The first theme is chaotic/extraordinary design. During these theme days, the goal is to get the students’ wildest creativity flowing and stimulate them to really think outside the box. The first activity for this theme is a pub quiz. The second activity is a ‘creation realization’. The board will give a theme that will be defined before the activity. The theme will give the participants the possibility to realize one of their crazy ideas and think outside of the box. If desired, their creation can be realized with a 3d printer.

 

Programming design

During these theme days the students get to know a more technical side of IDE. There are a lot of career possibilities in UI/UX design. Therefore it is beneficial for IDE students to develop more skills in this field as well. Through these theme days, the students will gain more knowledge on programming and UI/UX design alike.

 

Marketing design

Marketing around design: During these theme days, the students will learn about the marketing that comes with design. In the bachelor program there are not many links to it. Although industrial design is mainly about the design, the marketing can make a design concept whole. It is good to explore this as well as the technical and creative aspects of design.

 

Sustainable design

Sustainable designs: During these theme days, the students will be familiarized with more sustainable design alternatives, which helps in creating a healthier world. The activities planned for this theme consist of a lunch lecture and an event where students can build their own sustainable ecosystem, this will be in the form of a terrarium. For this, jars of recycled glass will be used.

 

Although the Covid-19 situation there will be a symposium on the 24th of March! 

Sign up at https://forms.gle/8hDymjgoZK3hiGnG9

The symposium will be held online via “Hopin”. The program layout mirrors that of lecture halls and business fairs in the online environment. You can “Hop” in, and out of talks or “mini” lectures as if you were strolling around a business fair or peeking into guest lectures or workshops.

The theme of this symposium is Enjoy the Ride.

This theme is a celebration of technical advancements in transport, packaging, distribution, and commuting. It ties together product life cycles and leaps in sustainable technology being implemented to make products all over the world not just better for the people living on it, but also for the globe itself.

Wondering what companies will attend the online symposium? You can read about each company down below. More companies will be added over the course of the following month. 

EDAG

At EDAG they are experts in the development of vehicles, production plants and the optimisation of processes. When it comes to automobile development, an OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) needs someone with a fully integrated approach to the question of mobility. With a passion for development. That’s them: the acknowledged, independent engineering experts for the automotive industry.

As the leading technical development partner of the global automotive industry, they offer you the technical challenges of the future. Moreover, they offer you the opportunity to develop your full potential with the necessary tools and flexible working methods. But above all, they offer a culture of family, appreciation, respect and recognition in a safe and reliable working environment.

Benchmark

Benchmark offers their customers localized R&D(Research and development) services such as industrial design, electronics, mechanical and embedded software engineering, and fast prototyping. They have a broad field where they are working in including complex industrial, defense, commercial aerospace,  semiconductor capital equipment, and medical.

Benchmark tries to provide comprehensive solutions across the entire product lifecycle through their innovative technology and engineering design services, leveraging global supply chains and delivering world-class manufacturing services to their customers.

NAC

NAC (Netherlands aircraft company) is a company that develops aircrafts currently they are the Fokker 130 from bottom to top. They are trying to make the fokker 130 carrying 130 passengers the lightest in its class, have low noise and is suitable for high frequently operations

The Fokker 130 promises to become the benchmark for the market segment with Lowest fuel burn and Direct Operating Cost per seat and per tri, greenest aircraft with lowest CO2 emission and lowest interior and exterior noise levels and the weight advantage allows the installation of a light engine without compromising performance. 

Spyker

Spyker LTD is a manufacturer of highly exclusive hand-build super sports cars. In 1914 Spyker merged with the Dutch Aircraft Factory N.V. From that moment on the Spyker logo consisted of an aircraft propeller and a wire wheel. The axiom “Nulla tenaci invia est via” – for the tenacious no road is impassable – has held true for Spyker ever since.

The racing and aviation heritage of the early cars has been carried over to the contemporary Spykers, their design being heavily influenced by airplanes and aerodynamics. Their uncompromising engineering developed for racing. Hand-crafted in the same tradition as the earlier Spykers by the best craftsmen of our time using bespoke materials only. Built with passion for the most passionate drivers, for those discerning connoisseurs who do not just buy a car but have one built for them, to their exacting specifications. Benefiting from experience gained in the international race arena by entering basically standard Spykers in GT class events such as the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the ultimate endurance race challenge.

Spykers are the ultimate statement of individuality: a creation of timeless beauty in the form of a state of the art technology package with spectacular performance. Every Spyker is as much an individual as its discerning buyer.

 Batna aviation

Batna aviation is a company with over 40 years experience, Batna Aviation is a global company managing aircraft sales and marketing for airlines, leasing companies and asset managers. Batna has a dedicated team of professionals that have experience working for manufacturers, airlines, Lessors, MRO centres and financial organisations.

Batna specialises in transactions of Commercial aircraft of all sizes. Their team can assist in providing full start up support from initiation to full airline operations to successfully achieve operating revenues. 

Services include Acquisition of New or Pre-owned Aircraft of any size, Remarketing, Asset / Lease management, ACMI services, Full Maintenance services, Aircraft Evaluation, Short term and Long term Managed Storage of Aircraft and all full consulting services such as: Aircraft Fleet selection, Price Valuations, Risk Planning, Airline Business Model development and Aircraft Financing

ProRail

The sixth company is ProRail, ProRail is a government task organization responsible for the railnet of the Netherlands. They are part of the NS Railinfratrust and work day and night to ensure that travelers and goods arrive at their destination safely and on time.They do this together with carriers. They also work together with recognized railway contractors such as NS, DB, Qbizz, Arriva, and Keolis.

ProRail does Track maintenance, Track renewal, Capacity distribution, Coordination of train traffic, Incident prevention and report, Soil survey, Green management & Rail freight transport. Designing and maintaining the rails with the performance of each individual contractor in mind. Heavy logistics and management are part of their day-to-day operations. They also design and maintain the stations along the impressive 7000km stretch of rails. 

ProRail wants to run more trains, safely and with less disruption. Now and in the future. They always do this with the utmost attention to detail and with a clever eye on environmental and societal impact.

Most recently, they have been designing sound panels to keep the trains quieter in higher density neighbourhoods and installing fibre-optic cabling to get better data transfer between the sensors on the tracks. 

To the symposium are also coming some student teams

SolarCar

Our world needs more sustainable transport and new technologies. The SolarCar team develops the most efficient solar car because they believe there needs to be a change and that they can be the change.

The solar car entails innovative technology that can also be applied to other industries and products. Let’s innovate and create a change together!

Racing 3.000km through the hot Australian desert and going through thick and thin with an ambitious team to win this 5-day Bridgestone World Solar Challenge. That is what Solar Team Twente does to set a sign for sustainable transport and innovation in the mobility sector.

SolarBoat

Solar Boat Twente encourages environmental awareness by the application of renewable energy in the maritime sector. The coming year a multidisciplinary team of dedicated and enthusiastic students of the University of Twente will focus on building a reliable solar boat. By pushing the limits of technological innovation, the team embraces a great challenge: designing and building the motorboat of tomorrow. The goal is to race for a podium position in the Solar Sport One competition in 2021.

Solar Boat Twente uses high-tech solutions for the world of tomorrow. They believe in innovation and look for excellence by taking nothing for granted. Solar Boat Twente takes the usage of solar technology to the next level and contributes to the future of mobility.

They will participate in the Monaco Solar Boat Challenge 2021 and the Dutch Solar Challenge 2021.

Superbike

Electric Superbike Twente is a student racing team designing and building a fully electric motorcycle from scratch. Every year a new team of students with fresh ideas takes over, eager to continue the mission of showcasing the excitement and fun of sustainable mobility!

To preserve the world of racing for future generations the team has set the goal to achieve MotoGP lap times with a fully electric superbike by 2022.

GreenTeam

Green Team Twente is a team consisting of eighteen enthusiastic students from the University of Twente and Saxion University of Applied Sciences who work together to build the most efficient and sustainable hydrogen car. As current world champions, they show that Dutch students are at the top in the field of development and application of green energy. Also this year they built one of the most fuel-efficient cars in the world.

Hydrogen cars are not too common yet. That is precisely why the students find it important to show what the possibilities are. The green car is the latest version of the hydrogen cars that the team has made. 

 

The planning of the symposium will be available in a couple of days.

Are you interested to hear stories from those companies and student teams? Develop the factory and production line necessary for products?  Do you share our desire for mobility and the improvement thereof?

Then visit them at the symposium! You can sign up at https://forms.gle/8hDymjgoZK3hiGnG9

Mark is 30 years old and is currently working at Elli, which is a group at Volkswagen. Elli is assigned to ensure people buying an electric car form Volkswagen will be able to charge it conveniently everywhere in Europe. Whether it is with a charging station at home or at a charging station at a rest-stop on the highway. Mark currently works as Project Manager developing the charging station that can be installed at customers their home. He started his studies of Industrial Design at the University of Twente in 2008 and finished his studies in 2015. He did both his Bachelor and his Master at the UT. Currently, His work is focused around everything that has to do with charging electric cars.

During his student years Mark was never really an active member at Daedalus concerning for example partaking in committees. He was however a member of Daedalus and did go to the fun ID parties. He believes that Daedalus was quite an active association in 2008 compared to other study associations.

In his masters Mark followed the management of product development track, which was already part of the curriculum back then. He mainly focussed on this track and did not deviate a lot from the courses that were part of this master track. He did his master assignment at Siemens in Nurnberg, where he worked on the packaging of semi-finished electric-vehicle components. Because the supervision was not optimal, he eventually decided to stop with this assignment. After that he had a period in which he did not know what to do, but eventually he graduated in the spring of 2015. His assignment ended up being a free assignment without a company, but he did use a lot of his experiences from Siemens. He learned a lot from his time at Siemens as this was a preparation for a possible job at a company in the future.

In retrospect, he believes that Enschede has a nice and low key atmosphere, but that it was also too small for him. He also thinks it is a pity that there were/are less women at this university, as he believes it is better to have a mixed group of students. He would make the same choice of studying in Enschede, but looking back he would have liked to take more time to look at the possibilities of doing a minor or masters in another country. According to him the best aspect of Industrial Design Engineering is the interaction between all the different disciplines of Industrial Design, such as mechanics, electronics and software. You can also explore these disciplines within projects and that is how Mark got to know his interests.

After his studies Mark did not really know what he wanted to do, so he decided to apply for a job at USG Engineering. During his time at this company he mainly worked on prototypes for coffee and beverage machines, but he also started to work in the field of e-mobility. After he had worked here for 2.5 years, he decided to start a job at another company, which was mainly settled in China. After a few months it was already clear that he did not want to work here, so he moved on to another job. This is his current job at Volkswagen/Elli. He mainly wanted to work at Elli, because the scale of the investments and ambitions are very high.

After his master graduation assignment in Nürnberg, he wanted to go back to the Netherlands. He did have the ambition to go abroad again, but not right after his graduation. That is why he first started at USG Engineering. However, after that and a couple of years working at Vattenfall, he decided it was time to move abroad again. He wanted to go to a place, where he could stay for a longer period and where there were enough job opportunities. He wanted to go to Hamburg or Berlin in Germany. Eventually, he decided to go to Berlin. Mark believes that it is more difficult to work in another country, as it takes longer to arrange something, because of for example the language barrier and the difficulty of mixing with locals. However, because he already was quite acquainted with the language and cultural differences are not that big, Germany was easier than other countries. He does think that working abroad is eye opening, because you will discover that you have taken things for granted, which are different elsewhere, like .

Now that he is working at Elli, he mainly sees the aspect of seeing connections coming back from his studies at the University of Twente. He believes that especially Eric Lutters challenged him to question what he sees and hears. He learned to not just assume something is correct, but try to understand why it is correct and if it even is correct. After his studies, at companies, he mainly learned that things happen according to the policy or known practices of the company, which might not necessarily be logical. He also discovered that people are usually too modest. He thinks it is important for a person to know what their abilities and the people around him/her are. With this mindset you can find out if you can trust someone and you can foresee if problems will occur.

Want to know more about Mark and the job he is doing right now? If the Berlin trip will still take place, we will visit him!