Bamboo sticks, cardboard, wool, tape, satay sticks, polystyrene balls, clay, elastics, straws, CDs, plastic cups, balloons, drawing-pins, newspapers. It boggled even the wildest minds what was for sale in the ‘shop’ of Van der Waals, the study association of Applied Physics. The currency consisted of points, to be earned with various more or less playful games. The price varied - to the amazement of the shoppers - according to supply and demand.

The assignment: build something that will help you move a tennis ball across the greatest possible distance. Possibly that description was a tad too vague, for could you or could you not stick that ball to the bottom of a paper plane? And that giant marble run, could it extend beyond the starting-line?

Some sort of crossbow made of bamboo and elastic seemed to be a safe choice, but how far is that really going to get you? Sometimes to a negative distance, as it turned out at the end of the afternoon when all the constructions were tested on the lawn behind the Cascade building.

Meanwhile the intro students of Electrical Engineering were already anxious to test their home-built controllable car featuring collision detection in the Flux building. The idea was that it could be navigated between a couple of beer crates, dodging paper cups, to the middle of a mini-maze. Complete with a working siren and flashing lights, as intro daddy Mark Legters of student association Thor explains.

The outcome was rather disappointing. “Our car was moving alright, but did not respond to the commands of the app.” Also, the siren and flashing lights failed at the moment of truth, although that did not quench the high spirits in the group - whose intro mummy was dressed like Dora (from the children series by the same name). The Zwieber de Vos suit for Mark has not arrived yet, unfortunately, which is quite a letdown for him.

In the Gemini refectory there was also a lot of tinkering going on by aspiring mechanical engineers dressed in glaring blue with vivid yellow lettering, who had been inspired by a mini-lecture preceding the afternoon session. It is reported that this year a flight element will be added to the traditional challenge - use a beer crate to build a boat suited for a tub-dance like track. On Tuesday morning it will become clear what that assignment has yielded, combined with the creativity of the coming first-year students.

Contrary to their fellow-students from Flux they had to make do without the mental support from their intro parents: they were already fully involved with preparations for dinner. Which is just as well, says a committee member of study association Simon Stevin of Mechanical Engineering. “Otherwise they would probably have gone out to help them anyway.”

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