January 29, 2020

Dutchman fails test 10 times, needs it to graduate

Filed under: Online,Science,Weird by Orangemaster @ 3:44 pm

For the past couple of years 22-year-old university student at the Eindhoven University of Technology keeps failing the same two exams over and over, stopping him from graduating. The exams are calculus and ‘some kind of algebra’, whatever that means. Both exams are from his first year, and he’s now in his fourth year.

He’s not too worried, but his friends think it’s amusing. On Heeft Daan calculus al gehaald (‘Has Daan finally passed calculus?’) you can check his progress. His friends helped build the site.

In the Netherlands grades go from 0 to 10, and on Daan’s last attempt at passing the calculus test, he got a two. “I felt like shit,” he said. In a way, I want to Daan to pass because he’s very much the underdog, and in another, I’m glad he’s not studying to be a doctor or a dentist.

There’s another Dutch concept that’s good to know, it’s called the ‘zesjescultuur’ (‘sixes culture’, as in 6 out of 10, a passing grade) and for many people that’s enough.

Daan’s the poster boy for it now.

(Link: www.nhnieuws.nl)

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July 12, 2018

Dutch university tries new way to catch criminals

Filed under: General,Science by Orangemaster @ 2:16 pm

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As of yesterday, the police, together with Eindhoven University of Technology, started a trial using data correlation to determine the bad behaviour of criminals such as pickpockets more quickly.

In Roermond, Limburg, a city next to both Belgium and Germany that welcomes tens of thousands of visitors from other countries every day for their outlet shopping centre, the city has a major pickpocketing problem. A university team led by data-mining professor Mykola Pechenizkiy is helping the police analyse various databases containing information about shopping centre visitors, including automatically recognised number plates, data collected for marketing purposes, messages on social media and camera images.

Of course, privacy is an important part of this project for both the criminals and visitors. “For this reason, we also work closely with the mayor and public prosecutor, for example. Based on the experiences in the living labs, they can assess the impact on the privacy of citizens and decide whether this is acceptable in order to achieve the desired goals’, explains Marius Monen of the university’s Data Science Centre.

In Rotterdam a while back, a dynamic teenage duo was following pickpockets, taking pictures and calling the cops on them.

(Link: phys.org, Photo: of Dutch police officers politie.nl)

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June 24, 2018

Dutch robots win big at Robocup 2018

Filed under: Technology by Orangemaster @ 4:21 pm

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Last weekend the Eindhoven University of Technology won two major European prizes at the RoboCup 2018, held in Montreal, Canada. The team from Eindhoven won the Middle Size League, which is the most important football category where two robot teams play real football against each other without any human intervention. However, the final was won by the Portuguese CAMBADA 2-0. In all, 35 countries were competing for prizes.

Eindhoven University of Technology also won a prize with their robot Amigo in a category that tests the socially helpful abilities of robots in a home environment. Amigo beat the first and third places of the championship last year, both from Germany.

(Links: bright.nl, robocup2018.org, Photo of RoboCup2013 in Eindhoven by RoboCup2013, some rights reserved)

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March 12, 2018

Dutch university reveals world’s first circular car

Filed under: Automobiles,Dutch first,Sustainability by Orangemaster @ 3:22 pm

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Last month, students from the Eindhoven University of Technology revealed ‘Noah’, the world’s first circular car. Noah is made of entirely recyclable material that is easy to disassemble. The two-seater weighs 350 kilogrammes and is powered by six modular batteries. In July the students will demonstrate that Noah is also a practical road legal car.

The plan is also to prove that circularity (true sustainability) is already possible for complicated products like cars. The design team will use renewable resources to further develop bio based materials, drive fully electric and design Noah to be recycled, making Noah the most sustainable car in the world.

Noah’s motors have a power of 15kW, to reach a speed of about 100 km/h and a total range of 240 kilometres. At the end of the lifecycle, the car will be fully recyclable, lowering the need for raw materials and giving the used materials a new life.

(Link and image: electriccarsreport.com)

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February 7, 2018

Giving bamboozle structures the attention they deserve

Filed under: Art by Orangemaster @ 5:54 pm

Bamboozle

Timo Scholte of the Eindhoven University of Technology has given bamboozle structures some proper attention.

“They consist of 51 equilateral triangles, meeting pairwise at an angle of about 70.5 degrees (arccos 1/3). The four colours correspond to the four orientations of the triangles. There are 15 yellow triangles, and 12 triangles of each red, green, and blue. The smallest cycle involves 10 triangles.”

Stay with me.

“Though the search for new bamboozle structures proved unfruitful, we found that the hexagonal bamboozle structure was in fact not a bamboozle structure, discovered that the square bamboozle structure and the four-coloured rectangular bamboozle structure actually form continuous families, and gained a better understanding of the bamboozle structure and what areas should be considered to find a complete list of possible structures.”

Class dismissed.

(Link: improbable.com, Photo: win.tue.nl)

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January 24, 2018

Sexist carnival theme gets students’ funding cut

Filed under: General by Orangemaster @ 1:07 pm
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The Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Eindhoven University of Technology, Jan Mengelers, ‘blew up’ at a student association for using a sexist and ‘rapey’ carnival themed party on campus entitled #nietoo intended as a play on words and a rhyme of #meetoo.

Translated into English, the theme is ‘What women want doesn’t count’ (‘De wil van de vrouw doet er #nietoo’), with a wonderful image of a young woman with tape over her mouth and #nietoo stamped on it. These are future engineers in the making; their parents must be proud.

Mengelers gave the representatives of this student association, which I have a feeling has little or no women in it, a stern talking to on the same day he found out and in true straight up Brabo style told them this conversation wasn’t going to be a long one and told them their annual funding has been cut off.

The student association plans to publicly apologise, cancel the party and investigate internally. In one month, these morons will have to talk to Mengelers again and see if they’re still the cavemen they’ve shown us they can be.

update: The poster in question (see link), which was a bit tough to read, also reads ‘for 18 years and up and 5 years and under’ which shocked a lot of people more than the sexist remarks.

(Link: omroepbrabant.nl)

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October 20, 2017

Dutch boast world’s first printed bike bridge

Filed under: Architecture,Bicycles,Dutch first,Sustainability by Orangemaster @ 2:49 pm

3D-bridge-Gemert

In June we told you about Amsterdam getting a 3D printed steel bridge, but the town of Gemert Noord-Om, Noord-Brabant has recently had a 3D steel printed bridge for cyclists installed, making it a world first.

The bridge was printed in June at the Eindhoven University of Technology and installed by construction company Royal Bam Group. It is made of pre-stressed and reinforced concrete, which is a feat of sustainability. “With 3D printing, you have more flexibility regarding the shape of the product. As well, 3D printing a bridge is also incredibly efficient: you need less concrete, but there is also no need for shuttering where the concrete is normally poured in. You just use exactly what you need, and there is no CO2 emissions”, explains BAM Director Marinus Schimmel.

And yes it’s a corporate film in Dutch, but you get to see how they made it.

(Links and image: designboom.com, brabant.nl)

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November 12, 2016

World’s most sustainable uni building in Eindhoven

Filed under: Architecture,Sustainability by Orangemaster @ 11:08 pm

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The main building of the Eindhoven University of Technology plans to have “the most sustainable university building in the world” and it will be called ‘Atlas’. Once it is entirely renovated in the summer of 2018, the building’s previous gas connection will have been replaced by a geothermal system which will work with solar panels to provide energy to supply most of the building’s power.

The building will also feature smart LED lighting, controllable by users by way of an app, as well as a triple-glazed curtain wall paired with interior sun blinds, and a ‘night flush’ system that will side windows outwards during summer nights in order to cool the building and purify the air.

(Link: www.archdaily.com, Image by www.tue.nl)

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July 15, 2016

World’s biggest green façade on Venlo building

Filed under: Architecture,Sustainability by Orangemaster @ 7:49 pm

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Rotterdam architectural firm Kraaijvanger has built the new city hall in Venlo, which claims to have the greenest façade in the world measuring two thousand square metres.

A greenhouse above the building purifies the air and can deliver heat to the entire building. The green façade purifies air from the nearby road and railway. According to Kraaijvanger, tests in labs of the Eindhoven University of Technology have proven that the façade filters 30% of nitrogen and carbon dioxide from the air.

As well, the building has applied many sustainable techniques such as using the parking garage to either warm up the air or cool it down, depending on the weather. It also catches and filters rainwater before flowing back into the Maas river and makes optimal use of daylight.

Venlo’s new city hall is entirely energy neutral and has been built following the cradle-to-cradle design concept.

(Link: www.binnenlandsbestuur.nl, Photo: Kraaijvanger)

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July 4, 2016

Dutch robots win Robocup 2016 on penalties

Filed under: Technology by Orangemaster @ 9:32 am

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Eindhoven’s Tech United team has won the Robocup 2016 in Leipzig, Germany, a team that keeps on supplying us with stories of victory thanks to their sweet robotics.

Their match up was against the Chinese team ‘Water’, defending their 2015 title. Eindhoven was ahead 2-1, and after regulation time, it was tied 2-2. In overtime both teams made it 3-3 and much like some games in Euro 2016, it came down to penalty kicks.

However, Water missed all five shots, nicely stopped by Tech United’s goalkeeper, while Tech United putted one in for the win.

(Links: www.bright.nl, www.nu.nl, Photo of RoboCup2013 in Eindhoven by RoboCup2013, some rights reserved)

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