For four of the five team members this was the first time they had taken part in a hackathon, tells student of Data Science and Engineering Evelien Schumacher - woman of all trades, as she is introduced by her team in the short film below. “Only Bert had taken part before.” And not only that, last year Bert van Gestel, student of Sustainable Innovation, was one of the initiators of the HEX Hackathon. “We are a group of friends and we thought it would be fun to take part. Mainly I was curious to see what it would be like. In 32 hours you and your team pump out both an idea and a concept. That is really cool, but it certainly takes it out of you. We didn’t get much sleep,” says Evelien. “Only Bert stayed there to sleep, on an air mattress. The rest of us went home to bed, but everyone’s nights were pretty short."

Roughly 300 students took part in the HEX hackathon, from the Netherlands as well as from abroad. “Some groups were very serious and were mostly interested in working hard. We weren’t so keen on ‘all work and no play’ and took part in the social activities too.”

The team participated in the Smart Cities track and was challenged to come up with an innovation for the Holst Centre that involved printing electric circuits on thin foil. “There’s such a lot you can do with that. We invented a sports pants that give feedback in real time - which means while you are doing sport. If, for example, you go over on your ankle, or pull a muscle. The material in the trousers can even correct the error immediately, by exerting pressure.” What’s more, the team, which renamed itself e-Sense, built an app that gives the wearer additional feedback afterwards. The TU/e fivesome finished among the top 10. “We are very proud that as a young team we have managed to win a place in the final,” says Evelien.

Will there be a next time? “We have agreed at any rate to stay in touch. I think it’s really cool that we’ve done this, but if there’s a next time I’d probably prefer to do a 24-hour hackathon.”