Intro '17 | Tailor-made work for a guinea pig

There was so incredibly much to learn on Thursday afternoon during the Intro. How can you brew beer at home, how can you use paper to cut out a model for electronic jewelry, how do you make tacos, hamburgers or whatever? And whilst all of this can be done in large groups, there was also tailor-made work available. One workshop was very special indeed, at least for Emmy Meijer: she was the only participant.

In the Paviljoen, which is still the home base for IE&IS this year, student of Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences Jip van Schayik is presenting the workshop ‘Cultural differences’ in a large lecture hall. In doing so he is supported by fellow-student Sjors van Weert. He is not very busy, because there is just one student, Emmy.Emmy has already learnt something. “I’ve just heard that the Chinese tend to efface themselves. That the group interest always takes precedence over individual achievements with them.” Then she turns her head, crowned by bunny’s ears - her ID group’s gadget - back to teacher Jip. He is happy to have an opportunity to practice with Emmy. He has to give three more of these workshops this afternoon “and I am not very familiar with it just yet”.We are moving to another building. In Laplace people are tinkering with jewelry. ID lecturer Maarten Versteeg expects that this pottering can be used to good advantage to conceive how you can integrate jewelry and electronics. In the ‘Digital paper jewelry’ workshop he makes students work in groups to carry out a genuine Industrial design assignment. Intro kid Lotte Wondergem (ID) wants to focus on ‘leaving home’ and make jewelry that will allow the parents and their fledgling children to stay in touch. Ivana Rovers from the Biomedical Engineering group ‘Fluiten en Sluiten’ twirls her referee’s whistle around. True to the spirit of a genuine researcher she first wants to find an answer to the question: What do you do with your jewelry unaware?The ‘How to brew your own beer’ workshop in Helix was immediately booked to capacity. Ninety persons, including two female participants, want nothing more than this. Still: “It is a kind of tea making that takes you an hour”, is how Chemical Engineering and Chemistry student Boris Zwaan summarizes the actual brewing of beer. This implies that it is not a real workshop, but rather a lecture about his hobby. He gives a step-by-step explanation of the processes involved and wherever possible adds the chemical formulas. In order to make beer you need to germinate barley, separate the fleeces (chaff) from the grains (corn) and turn amylose into glucose. “Even though it is quite simple really, it is definitely more difficult than frying an egg”, Boris tells the Intro kids. The ‘workshop’ lives up to its name to some extent when it is concluded with the sampling of two special beers.

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