The last preparations

In one week we will finally depart to the People's Republic of China. On Friday the 7th of September we will depart with a delegation of 24 students to visit Chinese companies and experience the Chinese culture. The preparation work is nearing its final stages and there are only a few things left to do in the final week. Upcoming Monday we will receive the travel guide from the press, just in time to distribute them to the participants during the goodbye drinks. Furthermore the dress shirts with Lián Xì logo will arrive next week too. The neckties which complement the shirts are already arrived. We ordered red scarfs for the ladies and rubiginous ties for the gents at stropdassen.com (visit their site on www.stropdassen.com for more information about their assortment and their prices). Finally we decided to change the frontpage of the website in a blog so all new developments during our journey can be followed.

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NRG Battle: Formic acid, the fuel of the future

The 25th of May, a group of 15 participants joined the NRG Battle in Delft. This was more than a chance to network and find sponsors, it was pure team building. We were divided over five teams for different companies with their case. A total of ten participants had to find a solution for TenneT. The case was to define an overlay grid to transport renewable energy. Since renewable energy is generated only when the wind blows or the sun shines. Still people demand a stable delivery of energy when they need it. Furthermore, our solution should have minimal impact on the environment to make the solution acceptable for the people.

As electrical engineers, we came to a rather surprising solution: Formic acid. After brainstorming for about 2 hours we came to the conclusion that more cables wouldn't do the job. Instead we chose to reuse the current infrastructure of pipes and tankers. The renewable energy will be converted into formic acid for transport. Alternatively, it can also be stored in unused silos and it is suitable for fuel cells. Eventually, every household should get its own fuel cell connected to the exiting gas pipe. After the pitches, the jury found this idea to be the most innovative idea of the day and chose it as winner. In the end 9 of us reached the finals and we all had a great and inspiring day!

Symposium

Last Thursday the three study tours Acacia, Noodle and Lian Xi organized a symposium about China. Marleen Spijkman was the first guest to speak about China. She explained the consumers of China and the differences between the different type of consumers. Bob Su gave an insight into the education and economy of China. He compared the Dutch and Chinese universities and rankings. Thereafter he discussed the value China for the Dutch companies and economy. Jan-Willem van der Wal, co-founder of MMS, was the last one to speak. He visits Asia, including China, a lot, because of his work and interest. During his presentation he gave an insight into the Chinese business culture, general culture and good manners. It was an interesting symposium for all study tour participants.

Timestamp calibration system using LEDs

The participants of the study tour have been working hard on a case study by Fugro. Fugro works on positioning systems for under water usage. GPS cannot be used, instead images are used to determine the movement. However, this requires high precision. The system currently used is called StarPort and triggers the camera while releasing a timestamp. The shutter time from a PAL-camera is unknown and has to be determined to know whether these cameras can be used with StarPort.

We have implemented a clock with LEDs. The PAL cameras are triggered by the StarPort system and take a picture of the LEDs. From the picture the time it was taken can be read out. The shutter time can be determined as well with some image processing software that we have written. This time can be compared to the StarPort output. The precision o the system is 0.125 ms.

Update and second case study

Since the last update a lot of things have happened. At this moment we are having our second case study weekend, in this weekend the case study of the last weekend will be extended en finished. The committees are still working to obtain more case studies and sponsorships, and we just finished a meeting with all the members of the study tour about the progress and the obtaining of new case studies. The board of recommendations is complete and the brochure for companies is finished. It can be found online on this site. Ofcourse we are still looking for new case studies and other manners of sponsorship. After this weekend we will start with making the travel guide and further organise the program of the trip.

Website launched

Our temporary website was visible the last couple of weeks. Our graphical team was working on a complete website behind the doors. Today we are proud to launch the final version of our website for the study tour to China. More information will be added to this website in the upcoming weeks.