It was nice to hear from everyone what their high points were and what they plan to do in the new year. Eating and drinking together, it sounds so simple, but is oh so effective. It makes it possible to talk about completely different things, unrelated to what's going on day to day. And that is exactly what raises the prospect of really interesting conversations.

What's more, a communal meal in the office can prompt people to stick around for longer, to carry on working, and thus be more productive. Nonetheless, a communal meal like this at TU/e is almost impossible without incurring huge costs. Unless, of course, you're keen to eat a soggy pizza or greasy kebab.

Having said that, now's probably the right time to confess that when we were working flat out with STORM and Solar Team Eindhoven, there were weeks in which we ate kapsalon five nights in a row. That's fries, shawarma meat and cheese grilled then topped with salad. The meal has the added benefit of being so chockfull of calories that you don't need to eat breakfast the next day.

Eventually even a kapsalon loses its appeal. But if we wanted to have a decent meal for once, we first had to find someone who would agree to let us misuse their kitchen.

Then it would be a question of slogging away for hours in a kitchen that didn't have enough space. After that, you'd be on your bike taking a couple of large tubs full of cold pasta across town. Since this actually involves a great deal of effort, and takes up a lot of valuable time, we'd often be content to settle for a good old kapsalon.

The solution is simple: a kitchen!

The alternative of everybody going home to cook has drawbacks. It means you don't work through the evening together, and don't discuss with one another in an informal manner important and less important matters. This is a missed opportunity that can be solved quite simply: by getting a kitchen!

It's hardly a coincidence that all the initiatives we visited on our inspirational trips had a kitchen. The kitchen was used intensively and the whole community was built around it. Isn't it funny that the only place on campus where cooking is permitted is the Common Room of the international student association Cosmos? That kitchen is one of the main reasons why a close-knit, lively community has arisen there. So let's make that happen at more places at our TU, because a strong community adds spice to everyone's life.

Students Tom Selten (Innovation Sciences) and Bas Verkaik (Mechanical Engineering) are very much involved with the TU/e innovation Space. They will be blogging about what's really going on within the four walls of the Gaslab, where the hotspot of innovation is located.