Wow, last week was awesome! As I wrote the last time, I went to Madrid with EESTEC; a Europe-wide students organization organizing workshops and exchanges.

Since I was the only of the 22 participants from the Netherlands, I was very eager to meet all the other participants, coming from all over Europe. Already on Sunday, the day of my arrival, we had a great dinner together and the night ended with a big party.

On Monday, after the official opening ceremony, we contributed to a celebration of the Spanish “day of the book”, by each reading a passage of Don Quixote in our own language. Afterwards, we were taken for a sightseeing tour around the city. Madrid must have been such an incredibly rich city, nowadays you can still see the breathtaking buildings all around.  After a successful international dinner (where everybody served food from his/her own country), we again headed for a party.

On Tuesday we had our first lecture, about a promising company making agent-based software. Unfortunately the lecture in the afternoon couldn’t continue, so I had to spend the rest of the afternoon in the sun in the Buen Retiro Park. What a pity .. . After a great Spanish buffet while watching one of the big football matches with the Spanish, we again headed for a party, this time in a fancy club.

On Wednesday, we visited two research facilities: the home automating lab of the Polytechnic University of Madrid and CeDint, where they do Research on Augmented Reality, Smart Buildings and Energy Efficiency. In the evening we went to a traditional Tapas restaurant. Afterwards we went to the club were all Erasmus/international students go; it was legendary.

Thursday morning started with a lecture about the “Magic Box”; a prestigious climate neutral house created by researchers and students form the Polytechnic University of Madrid. After the Lunch, which they take really serious in Madrid (with a 3 course meal), we could visit this Magic Box. In the afternoon we were taken through the city again for another sightseeing tour.  As you can guess by know, the day ended with a visit to a club.

On Friday, we had our last serious event; a lecture about wireless sensor networks. Afterwards we taken to the Spanish countryside, for a weekend of relaxing. Unfortunately, the weather was not really helping us, so we spend almost all weekend in our house over there. We slept for ages, played lots of different international games and shared our national liquors with each other.

During the last night, I found out that I’m strongly allergic to squid. Suddenly, my body was covered with red itching spots and breathing got harder and harder. Fortunately, our Spanish hosts reacted fast and immediately brought me to the hospital. Thanks to the good treatment over there I was back before sunset and I was still sharp enough to say farewell to all of my new friends.

Al in al, after a week in Madrid, I can truly confirm “La Gente Está Muy Loca”.

Since my girlfriend is on a study tour to Argentina for five weeks, I’m looking for some new things to during the evenings. Luckily there is a lot to do on the campus; I’ve started sporting more fanatically at the gym in the TU Delft Sports center, and I’m even considering to take some salsa lessons at the TU Delft cultural center. There is really a lot to do there!

I’ve made some big steps in the progress of my research for my thesis. Unfortunately for you, I’m reaching the phase where I’m actually making novel stuff, which I’m not allowed to write about. But that does make my work much more interesting for me!
Last weeks, I saw myself using a lot of the knowledge I acquired during my Masters; I’m programming in C++  mostly for my Digital Image Processing. I speeded up my algorithms, with the knowledge from Parallel Algorithms and Parallel Computers.  This way the data I generate  is fed to a machine learning algorithm, as I have learned in the Pattern Recognition course. In all steps I try to use my knowledge from Real-Time Systems to keep my algorithm real-time.

Next Sunday I will leave for Madrid for a week. The study association for Electrical Engineering (ETV), is member of EESTEC: a Europe wide students organization organizing workshops and exchanges. Having organized two international workshops myself, I really like to join a workshop before the end of my studies. During my one-week visit to Madrid, I’ll meet a lot of other European students. With them I’ll have workshops, lectures and parties. I guess it will be legendary!

I’ll write you when I’m back!

Christmas dinner in April

My life slowed down a little bit after writing my last post; I passed for the security test at the Airport and got my security card. I worked hard at my project and little happened during my evenings. Last week, however, was much less predictable and some more fun to write about.

For the work at my thesis, I started experimenting with a camera similar to the Microsoft Kinect camera. Using a 3D library, called Point Cloud Library (PCL), I was able create the 3D model of a passing crate shown here. As you can see, there is still a lot of noise and missing data. This week I’ll try to greatly improve my results by applying the Microsoft Kinect Fusion algorithm.

As the end of my study will soon be in sight, I’ve also started looking for a job. I’ve started off ambitious by applying of a Business Course of McKinsey’s Business Technology Office (BTO). I am looking for a job where I can use both my technical insights with all the managing skills I learn during all my extracurricular activities. My first serious motivating letter proved to be rather successful as I was invited for a job interview today.

As I wrote earlier on, last week was a bit more interesting. On Friday the 10th we went with a group of housemates to a big party in a neighboring students house. I was nice to see them in some really different perspective. On the 13th there was the first activity of the new IEEE SB Delft board. Afterwards, I spend the whole night on cooking for a big dinner on Friday. On Wednesday I had a double-date with a housemate and his girlfriend which whom we went to a Fondue restaurant in the city off The Hague. On Thursday there was a big party organized by students from our faculty, but I wanted to sleep early, to be well rested on Friday.

Because, on Friday, we had our house Christmas Dinner! In April! As most students are with their parents during Christmas and New Year’s eve, most students houses have a big Christmas dinner somewhere during the year. The dinner was, as we called it that evening, “Epicdary”, with 7 courses and all drinks included. We sat at the table to around 2 in the morning and had a really good time. We all wish Christmas could be celebrated more than once a year, but that would be weird, right.

Last Saturday, I saw my mother for the first time in 10 weeks. She just got back from Togo, where she did voluntary work a child healthcare organization. I was incredibly nice to hear all here stories about the totally different way of living they have there. My mother really enjoyed working with the kids there, as you really notice they are way less spoiled than the children here in The Netherlands.

Today I heard I’m selected to join a one-week exchange program to Madrid, Spain, so some more good stories are probably coming from Madrid at the end of April. For the next few weeks I hope to make some significant process in my thesis research. Check out my blog in two weeks to find out what I’m up to then!

Directly after the exam I had to rush to the train. I went to Maastricht, the Southernmost city of the Netherlands. My sister is studying there since September, and I never had the time to see here new room: I never even saw the City of Maastricht. The city itself was really nice, it had about the same atmosphere as Delft; pleasant people and a lot of mediaeval buildings.

As I’m leaving with the ETV study tour this Saturday, this was also the last weekend together with my girlfriend in quite some time. To celebrate this we went to a really classy restaurant. Unfortunately they weren’t quite used to my big stomach, so they were unable to entirely fill it..

This week started with the handover board meeting of the IEEE Student Branch. As I’m going to start my graduation project after my study tour, I wanted to reduce the number of additional jobs I do at the faculty. We found a motived new group, with a mix of International, Dutch, Master and PhD students.

From Tuesday one, the week was all about the study tour: it started with a symposium about the countries we are going to visit. We had a talk from the former Dutch ambassador in China, a PhD on cultural studies of South Korea, the embassy of Japan and a Professor on Asian economics. On Wednesday we had the chance to get to know all the participants and Asian food, in a wok-restaurant. All time that was left this week, I had to spend on getting ready to leave: washing and ironing my clothes, having last minutes meetings with people I won’t see for 4 weeks, etc.

As the study tour is coming closer and closer, I feel like going more and more. As I never left the western world, I think it will be a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Ill post my experiences when I’m back!

Kind regards!

The time of exams has finally come. Is the a strange feeling that these are one of the lasts exams I’ll eve take. I have two exams for semester-courses in January, but then I’ve already started working on my graduation project. The first exam, for Displays and Image sensors, was last Thursday and on Friday I will have the exam for Ad-Hoc Networks.

As I already realized last time, I still had quite a busy agenda before I could start studying. First of all there was the beer-tasting. Although we had a really fun evening, learned a lot about the rich history of Dutch and Belgium beers and everyone was really enthusiastic about it afterwards, it was a pity that only a small amount of student showed up. The hazing, later that night, was a better success which ended with a spectacular tandem sack race.

Next Thursday there was an “instemming“ in my student house. Because my Greek and Italian house-mates are moving out, there are two rooms coming free. At an instimming a lot of people are invited and, at the end of the evening, the person(s) fitting in the best with the house can move in. As I live in a house with a lot of different people, this is always a hard decision. Luckily our house will keep its international character, with a new student from the United States moving in.

In the next week I felt like a professional guide for our campus: on Monday I joined my 16 year old cousin at the open day of my faculty and the faculty of Aerospace engineering. Of course I hope he will choose for my faculty! Next Thursday,  after a full day of meetings, a group of 15 students Electrical Engineering from Hannover arrived. I showed them the Delft nightlife and the next day I guided them through our faculty.

It was funny to see that after showing them the nicest research labs at our faculty (e.g. the clean room for microchips and world’s 5^th largest high voltage lab), our nice campus and the beautiful city center, they were most impressed by the ETV. The ETV is the study association for students Electrical Engineering. It has a fulltime board which has close contacts with students, professors and companies. As written in my first blog, I also was in this full-time board.

This all toke place in the week that is supposed to be free in order to study for the exams. So in the weekend that followed I really started to study. Unfortunately for me, I had to take a break from studying on Tuesday for the job-interviews for the new IEEE SB Delft board I had to lead. It was strange to have these interviews from the other side of the table, especially because there are much older PhD student in front of me.

Luckily the time I had left was still enough to study for the first exam. Now there is one more week of studying ahead for me. Next period I will only follow two small courses as I will be away most of the time. Already in two weeks I will be walking around in Being, with the ETV study tour. I will try to give you one more update before I leave.

See you around!