News in Brief

With this just satisfactory grade, TU Delft received one of the worst grades of all Dutch universities graded in the Expertise Center Handicap + Study survey. “Such a grade is disappointing. It’s not a number you can be proud of,” said Piet Jonkheer, dean of students. Jonkheer does however find the grade unjust and says that great efforts have been made recently; for example, he is currently working on a communication strategy for providing information to handicapped students. The University of Amsterdam (UvA) also scored 5.8. TU Delft and UvA were not in last place however. That dubious distinction was reserved for the Erasmus University Rotterdam, which scored a 5.5. In the survey, handicapped students were asked to evaluate various areas, such as enrollment, helping aids, adaptability of the educational programs, information provision and special counseling.

,Refund please

MSc students from the Faculty of Architecture’s Delft School of Design have asked for a refund of their tuition fees for the period of September to December 2008. The students made this request in an open letter to TU Delft’s Rector Jacob Fokkema. The ten students who signed the letter said they have not received value for their money. They are unsatisfied with the workspaces they were given in the Faculty of Applied Sciences, following the fire at the architecture faculty. The workspace is too small and they cannot work in groups, they wrote: “We were promised an appropriate work space after the summer vacation, and that was why we returned and once again paid our tuition fees.” Many of the students come from outside the TU and pay higher tuition fees; therefore, they are upset that they still have not been given a work place in the new architecture faculty building on the Julianalaan.  In September they wrote to the dean of architecture to complain, but received no reply. Now they are appealing to Rector Fokkema to refund their tuition fees. 

,Constructers prize

TU Delft alumnus Volkert van der Wijk has won the ‘2008 Wim van der Hoek Constructers Prize’, which is a prize that is awarded annually to the best Master’s thesis work in the field of mechanical design engineering. Volkert, who graduated last April from the TU Delft’s department of biomechanical engineering, won the prize for his thesis on the dynamic balancing of mechanisms and robotics. The jury praised the way Volkert’s thesis combined fundamentals, design framework and a range of examples.

,Dangerous basement

A long, sloping ramp leading to the bike storage basement of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science (EEMCS) ends dangerously in a cement wall. Last week a woman crashed her bike into that wall. It was not the first accident in this dangerous spot. The woman was knocked unconscious and taken to the hospital by ambulance. “The women was bleeding from her head, nose and mouth,” says Tom Edelenbos, a staff member at EEMCS faculty. “And her bike was totally wrecked.”

,Nature publication

A TU Delft MSc student has co-authored an article published in the leading scientific journal Nature. Anneleen Oyen, a Belgian aerospace engineering student, co-wrote an article about the shifting continental plates in the Great Rift Valley that was published in the December 11 edition of Nature. Oyen analyzed the satellite radar data taken from one of the world’s rarest phenomena: a combination of volcanism and tectonics along the Great Rift Valley in Eastern Africa that splits the continent in two parts. Using European Space Agency data, Oyen was able to chart the earth’s crust to centimeter-scale precision. The measured stress was found to be nearly a hundred times greater than ‘conventional’ seismic observations had predicted. Oyen is a graduate student of Prof. Ramon Hanssen in the department of earth observation and space systems. Together with her co-authors, Oyen showed that a deep fracture area – two-meters wide – had formed, causing nearly 100 million cubic meters of magma to rise to the surface.

,Bridge builders

Two TU Delft students won the ProRail design competition, Traverse ‘08. The students, Joep Paulissen and Daan Tjepkema, were judged to have the most creative, innovative and expert design for a temporary pedestrian bridge between platforms. ProRail plans to build the flexible walkway in 2009 at the Venlo train station. The students, who named their temporary pedestrian bridge ‘Rail by Rail’, also won a cash prize of 5,000 euro.

Dean disappointed

TU Delft’s handicapped students gave the university a grade of 5.8 for its handicap services and regulations. The TU’s dean of students is disappointed with this grade. With this just satisfactory grade, TU Delft received one of the worst grades of all Dutch universities graded in the Expertise Center Handicap + Study survey. “Such a grade is disappointing. It’s not a number you can be proud of,” said Piet Jonkheer, dean of students. Jonkheer does however find the grade unjust and says that great efforts have been made recently; for example, he is currently working on a communication strategy for providing information to handicapped students. The University of Amsterdam (UvA) also scored 5.8. TU Delft and UvA were not in last place however. That dubious distinction was reserved for the Erasmus University Rotterdam, which scored a 5.5. In the survey, handicapped students were asked to evaluate various areas, such as enrollment, helping aids, adaptability of the educational programs, information provision and special counseling.

Refund please

MSc students from the Faculty of Architecture’s Delft School of Design have asked for a refund of their tuition fees for the period of September to December 2008. The students made this request in an open letter to TU Delft’s Rector Jacob Fokkema. The ten students who signed the letter said they have not received value for their money. They are unsatisfied with the workspaces they were given in the Faculty of Applied Sciences, following the fire at the architecture faculty. The workspace is too small and they cannot work in groups, they wrote: “We were promised an appropriate work space after the summer vacation, and that was why we returned and once again paid our tuition fees.” Many of the students come from outside the TU and pay higher tuition fees; therefore, they are upset that they still have not been given a work place in the new architecture faculty building on the Julianalaan.  In September they wrote to the dean of architecture to complain, but received no reply. Now they are appealing to Rector Fokkema to refund their tuition fees. 

Constructers prize

TU Delft alumnus Volkert van der Wijk has won the ‘2008 Wim van der Hoek Constructers Prize’, which is a prize that is awarded annually to the best Master’s thesis work in the field of mechanical design engineering. Volkert, who graduated last April from the TU Delft’s department of biomechanical engineering, won the prize for his thesis on the dynamic balancing of mechanisms and robotics. The jury praised the way Volkert’s thesis combined fundamentals, design framework and a range of examples.

Dangerous basement

A long, sloping ramp leading to the bike storage basement of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science (EEMCS) ends dangerously in a cement wall. Last week a woman crashed her bike into that wall. It was not the first accident in this dangerous spot. The woman was knocked unconscious and taken to the hospital by ambulance. “The women was bleeding from her head, nose and mouth,” says Tom Edelenbos, a staff member at EEMCS faculty. “And her bike was totally wrecked.”

Nature publication

A TU Delft MSc student has co-authored an article published in the leading scientific journal Nature. Anneleen Oyen, a Belgian aerospace engineering student, co-wrote an article about the shifting continental plates in the Great Rift Valley that was published in the December 11 edition of Nature. Oyen analyzed the satellite radar data taken from one of the world’s rarest phenomena: a combination of volcanism and tectonics along the Great Rift Valley in Eastern Africa that splits the continent in two parts. Using European Space Agency data, Oyen was able to chart the earth’s crust to centimeter-scale precision. The measured stress was found to be nearly a hundred times greater than ‘conventional’ seismic observations had predicted. Oyen is a graduate student of Prof. Ramon Hanssen in the department of earth observation and space systems. Together with her co-authors, Oyen showed that a deep fracture area – two-meters wide – had formed, causing nearly 100 million cubic meters of magma to rise to the surface.

Bridge builders

Two TU Delft students won the ProRail design competition, Traverse ‘08. The students, Joep Paulissen and Daan Tjepkema, were judged to have the most creative, innovative and expert design for a temporary pedestrian bridge between platforms. ProRail plans to build the flexible walkway in 2009 at the Venlo train station. The students, who named their temporary pedestrian bridge ‘Rail by Rail’, also won a cash prize of 5,000 euro.