by r'honest | Jul 5, 2019 | 3D CAD, 3D PRINTING, ALL, PROJECTS
After winning the second prize at the Mozilla WINS Challenge – Wireless Innovations for the Networked Society – the Lantern Project proceeded to evolve toward an operational platform. I was kept involved through the development of the next hardware prototype, code name ‘Hyperion’. This design features an e-ink display that can be used to provide user feedback independent from wireless connection with a smartphone. Eventually it might even be capable of acting as a navigation system towards strategic locations during a distaster. In June of 2019 I was invited to join the team in Montréal, Canada and Beacon, New York for a field test of the latest hard- and software. The first tests were very promising, and allowed us to communicate intuitively between 5 separate devices over distances beyond 1km without the use of cellular networks. Of course the field tests also brought numerous points for improvement to light, which have been evaluated thoroughly – leading to a new concept design that will be the bases of future...
by r'honest | May 12, 2019 | 3D CAD, 3D PRINTING, ALL, RESEARCH
I own a pair of headphones that represent to me all that is great about 3D printing: when ordered all you receive is a small package that fits through your letterbox, containing just the electronics and soft parts of the product. From the Print+ website you can download as many casing designs as you want, and 3D print them locally. Since it’s made easy to assemble and disassemble yourself, when something breaks you can simply repair it yourself. What’s more, since you have access to the source files you can even adapt the design to your own liking. In my case, I loved the design but I was used to wireless headphones by now. Print+ allowed me to solve my own problem by customizing the design. Fitting in an actual Bluetooth module seemed a bit complex, but since I had an old iPod Shuffle lying around the solution became much simpler; I just added a little bracket to the side cover and bought a short jackplug adapter, this way I created an autonomous headset without any wires interfering my music...
by r'honest | Apr 18, 2019 | 3D PRINTING, ALL, RESEARCH
As my personal give-away I designed a variation on a game I really enjoy called Story Cubes by Rory’s. The concept of the original is to throw some dice and then improvise a short story based on the icons facing up. I wanted to create a more interactive version, so I created three dice (theme, time and emotion) that shape a random question instead of a story. This way one person throws the dice and creates the question, the other person tells a story. I think it suits my work because it’s 3D printed, featuring game mechanics and changing the dialogue....
by r'honest | Apr 10, 2019 | ALL, PROJECTS, VIRTUAL REALITY
For Topmonumenten Brabant (Grote Kerk, Breda | Sint-Janskathedraal, Den Bosch | Markiezenhof, Bergen-op-Zoom | Kasteel Heeswijk, Heeswijk-Dinther) I developed an interactive digital lesson plan for high school students, using Cardboard VR viewers to make the challenge more immersive. The students are asked to choose a quest (one of the monuments) and answer questions about different traditional crafts to gain access to the next scene – eventually leading them to the most impressive space of each landmark, which awards them a ticket to visit the monument in real life. The VR experience makes the educational element more playful, and because they have to look around for clues they’ll get a better sense of the high levels of detail incorporated in these buildings. Hopefully they’ll get excited enough to visit, so they can look around with more freedom of movement – and engage all their senses in exploring our heritage. . The experience can be found here: https://topmonumenten.vrdeck.co/quest. The security certificate has expired but it’s still...
by r'honest | Apr 6, 2019 | 3D PRINTING, ALL, PROJECTS
“Imagine losing access to the internet, power, email and phone service
all at once. With the rapid pace of natural disasters globally,
lines of communication too often fail and it’s hard to find solid ground, both in terms of physical shelter and emotional well-being. New wireless solutions will help reconnect, gather and share crucial information community-wide when infrastructure fails.
With a global team of experts, that’s exactly what we’re building.” That’s how we won the 2nd prize at the Mozilla WINS Challenge – Wireless Innovations for the Networked Society. Of course I only played a small part in designing the enclosure, but this project has gotten really close to my heart: open source innovation with lifesaving impact. Which does now have the funds to build their next generation device: with custom pcb and e-ink screen....
by r'honest | Apr 6, 2019 | 3D PRINTING, ALL, PROJECTS, WORKSHOPS
The OneWorldCitizens foundation promotes social entrepreneurship among youths globally, and connected me to an ambitious young entrepreneur in Barathpur, Nepal called Pradeep Sapkota. Together we’re aiming to transform his current IT center into a technology hub, where he can inspire his community to engage in high-tech projects and agriculture innovation – keeping educated peers from going abroad. We settled on drone technology to get things started, since precision farming is a relatively low-cost, high return approach for agriculture innovation. For the pilot test we acquired a DJI Phantom 4, an easy to use, high quality camera drone. In cooperation with TGD (TU/e’s student association for Technology for Global Development) we organized a Hackathon that focused on getting the most our of this pilot, divided in 4 challenges: data analysis, business models, hardware upgrades and community intergration. All four groups discovered great additional value, but the feasibility prize went to ‘hardware upgrades’ and a team of students who just started the brand new learning line ‘Responsible Innovation in a Global Context’ took on the challenge to build an open source NDVI sensor, which can measure crop health, and can offer the farmers almost instant feedback on their lands’ primary needs – and thus reduce manual labor, one of the biggest issues for this sector in Nepal. I coached the students in their research and development, and since their final presentation they’ve transformed into a social enterprise – adding the software element and preparing the drone for deployment in the field....
by r'honest | Mar 21, 2019 | 3D PRINTING, ALL, PROJECTS
In collaboration with Additive Center and Marketiger a quick and lean development process lead to a pleasant surprise for prime minister Mark Rutte, when he received an ‘unbreakable’, 3D printed vase from his representatives in Brabant as a response to his analogy of The Netherlands being fragile like a (traditional) vase. We explored 3 directions: color, carbon fiber and metal. The decision was made to go for color, since it showed most clearly that Brabant is rising high in making The Netherlands unbreakable. Printed in a water-proof, ABS-like material (remember stepping on LEGO’s? That’s how strong it is)....
by r'honest | Mar 1, 2019 | 3D PRINTING, ALL, PROJECTS, VIRTUAL REALITY
My freelance contract with GameSolutionsLab allows me to work on multiple social innovation projects, from a role as rapid prototyper to applied researcher and beyond. In a 5 month process with the DELA IT innovation team, we developed 10 different AI demos and mock-ups for the funeral of the future based on extensive user research, with the final presentation in the form of an art-like exposition. For another DELA project I helped develop and test serious games to connect grandparents and grandchildren in a two-day pressure cooker: In a project with Vitalis I developed an interactive VR tour for their upcoming open day, and hope to have inspired them to start exploring what their VR headset has to offer on a daily basis with their...
by r'honest | Feb 27, 2019 | 3D PRINTING, ALL, PROJECTS
For their permanent exposition on ‘What is Design?’ I’ve produced a scale model of the famous IAMsterdam statue using SLS 3D printing...
by r'honest | Jan 31, 2019 | 3D PRINTING, ALL, PROJECTS
The European Supply Chain Forum enables professionals in and around supply chains to create, exchange and integrate knowledge by collectively exploring the future. Fresh Forces supported the development of their new corporate identity, and I joined in to translate the visual elements into a tangible representation. The logo is extended by mirror shapes, representing the three different communities. When connected, the logo becomes a fidget toy – anchoring the core values and community levels on a daily basis. The pieces can also be connected into different shapes – like a (supply) chain – to share their narrative with...
