With professorships on deep learning and visual intelligence by BD and Philips in the morning program and in the afternoon all about antennas and electromagnetic radiation by ASTRON and Ziuz.
Dion from Hardenberg, Alexander from Meppel, Rik from Vries and Geert from Veenwouden are studying in Twente and visited our companies for the first time. With the red in his cheeks, Geert admitted to having no idea of the beautiful high-tech companies in the northern Netherlands. And also next door in Drachten, I really didn't know that these companies were located here. I'm only focused on Twente and Eindhoven.’’ The Twente students provide proof of the need to beat the drum more as joint high-tech companies. Not with show and party, but with a substantive program. That is what the nearly 50 students were served. With pizza afterwards.
,‘’I didn't know that ’connected’ has already been implemented this far,’’ Dion responds to the visit to the Philips factory in Drachten. He is surprised by the size of the factory and the innovations coming from there. For example, the degree of connectivity of Philips products to give the user the best possible product experience. Also impressing is the 100 percent automated production line at BD. It strikes the students that this production line is built to perform testing and train professionals. Rik didn't expect that. ,,I thought training was mostly done inside, but what they do here at BD I find amazing.''
Piles in the landscape
Students come for content, so they get content. At ASTRON, David Prinsloo, an antenna design engineer at ASTRON for three years and born and raised in South Africa, explains how to make an All-Sky antenna. ,,Because that's what we do, make antennas that can see as much of the sky as possible. So not just the visible stars, but everything in space.’’ Prinsloo explains LOFAR. Poles in the landscape, held up by antenna cables on a grid, placed in the Netherlands and other countries that together form the largest radio antenna in the world. In a lecture, he explains in detail all about low-frequency antennas. How they work, what to consider and most importantly, what you can do with them.
Radio astronomy is the main purpose why ASTRON makes these antennas. But there are more applications. For example, indoor base stations for next-generation G5. Prinsloo shows one developed by ASTRON. ,,These antennas could not be made before, but with new 3D printing technology and Direct Metal Laser Sintering it is possible. These high performance antennas can properly handle the growing amount of data we use with the Internet of Things.’’
Medicines
Of a completely different order, but certainly no less interesting, is the lecture by Dries Pruimboom, software engineer at Ziuz. He introduces his employer as a software company in the beautiful small Frisian town of Gorredijk that started with applications to detect child abuse and is now great at recognizing medicines and supporting doctors in making a diagnosis.
Pruimboom explains how the IRIS works, a visual intelligence device in which a dual camera scans pills. ’’To make sure people take the right medication.’’ Almost ready for production, the machine had to be tested. Then it was discovered that the device caused interference radiation. A conundrum for Pruimboom and his colleagues, not electrical engineers but software engineers. ’’So when we opened the cabinet, we saw hundreds of wires and fuses that we didn't understand anything about.'' After some help and some research, the camera itself turned out to be the culprit. According to the manufacturer, impossible. So something else had to be devised. ''That became an enclosure for all the electronics, with a special signal filter that blocks the radiation.'' Now the camera works perfectly.
Pizza
Alexander gives free feedback on the high-tech safari afterwards while eating a pizza point. ’’We are techies. That's why I'm not so interested in talk from managers. I want to hear the stories from engineers and the people on the shop floor who do the work. In that respect, I got my money's worth today.’