Sports

Robert Tiemeijer (Applied Physics student) became student rowing world champion this summer. The Thêta member is one of the eight athletes of Studenten Holland Acht which took a gold medal at the Universiade. With a clocking of 5:35.60, they were almost 4 seconds faster than the runner-up, Germany.  The event took place on August 8 in Chengdu, China. The photo shows Tiemeijer in the bow seat (back leftmost) in the middle boat with the red-white-and-blue suits.

Cars

Student team InMotion has succeeded in charging the battery of racing car Revolution in under four minutes, allowing it to drive 250 km. That was a goal they had already set for themselves back in 2018. InMotion managed to achieve the record time using innovative cooling technology. Team manager Julia Niemeijer explains: “During fast charging, a significant amount of heat is generated, leading to accelerated degradation of the battery cells. If you want to extract heat as efficiently as possible from the battery pack, you want to cool as close as possible to the battery cells. Therefore, we have developed a method recently that enables cooling at the cell level, with actual coolant flowing between each cell. It has a tremendously positive effect on the lifespan and repeated fast charging. A 24-hour test shows minimal degradation of the battery pack as a result.”

URE University Racing Eindhoven first camped in Budapest, Hungary, to compete in the Student Formula East. They passed the tilt, rain and brake tests, presented their business plan to experts and even tested their drivers’ cockpit extraction skills. The actual racing at Hungaroring did not go as successfully as URE had hoped, but the team is still proud of what they accomplished. Immediately after Student Formula East, URE moved on to Formula Student Germany.

People

In the fall, Eric van der Geer-Rutten-Rijswijk will exchange his position as managing director at IE&IS for that of director of Education & Student Affairs (ESA). He will succeed Patrick Groothuis, who was appointed secretary of the Executive Board effective June 1. 

Mark Bentum has been appointed dean of the department of Electrical Engineering (EE) as of September 1. He will succeed Professor Bart Smolders, who has been in charge of the department since 2016.

Robots

This summer, Tech United once again won the robot soccer world championship. During the RoboCup final in France, they defeated the Falcons of chip manufacturer ASML 6-2. This marks the fourth consecutive World Cup victory for Tech United.

The RoboCup is the World Cup for self-driving robots. The table-high robots play 5-on-5 with a real soccer ball, in two 15-minute halves, on an 18 x 12 meter field. They are programmed in advance, but once the whistle blows, they play soccer completely independently and humans are mere spectators.

Tech United also competed in the @Home competition with service robots HERO, AMIGO and SERGIO. The goal in this competition is to develop robotics that can provide service and assistance in home or care situations. Service robot HERO can already serve drinks, open doors and put items on a shelf. Though it was slightly less handy than robots from South Korea and Japan, which is why it placed fourth in the competition after three days of performing tasks.

Research

Seven TU/e researchers who recently received their PhDs have each been awarded a Veni grant worth 280,000 euros to spend on their research over the next three years. Their ideas range from “Creating fake cells to learn more about adhesion of human cells” to “3D printing safe buildings” and “Making AI more accessible for education”. Click here to learn more.