Parents of first and second-year Electrical Engineering students are trying to put together a wireless communication board in the soldering lab at Flux. If they are successful, their microcontroller will be able to turn on a light or a small buzzer on some other parent’s device. That’s because all stations are wirelessly connected in the Mesh network.

The abovementioned business case was conceived during the lockdown period and symbolizes education at one-and-a-half-meter distance, as far as Volundr is concerned. Volundr is the committee at Electrical Engineering that provides students with practical supervision and offers them the opportunity to develop skills that aren’t part of the curriculum but that could come in handy during their future careers in industry. Students refer to Volundr as the Beun (or ‘handywork’) committee.

Volundr member and master’s student Jorn de Vries has been trying to get students to ‘work on their practical hobby’ for years. “Our department focuses more on theoretical knowledge. Practical skills are somewhat neglected here. I believe that it’s important for an Electrical Engineer to have these skills.”

All first-year students at EE need to carry out this same assignment. “Since they never had a course in electronics in high school, they don’t know anything yet. And the same is true for many of the parents who are here today,” Jorn believes.

Enthusiastic

Kathleen and Piet Nees traveled to Eindhoven from Antwerp for their daughter Anouk, who is a second-year student by now. “It’s been a terrible year for students. We want to demonstrate our commitment to our daughter,” the mother says. She enjoys the assignment, because even though she’s an electromechanical engineer by profession, she never has to piece together an electronic network in her daily work.