From a sushi box to a chessboard and from a gym to a minion: TU scientist and craft enthusiast Rolf Hut technically enhances every ‘Sinterklaas surprise’ with light, sound or movement. Welcome to Rolf’s Surprise Lab.
Working on a technical surprise in Rolf's Surprise Lab. (Photo: Thijs van Reeuwijk)
For starters: What is Sinterklaas and what is a ‘surprise’?
For anyone who didn’t grow up in the Netherlands, the Dutch Sinterklaas tradition can be pretty confusing. You could think of Sinterklaas as the Dutch origin of Santa Claus, an old man in a red gown bringing children gifts overnight. To children, Sinterklaas is said to arrive on his boat from Spain some weeks before the actual Sinterklaas Day on the 5th of December.
While the youngest children simply receive gifts, older children (around 7 to 12 years old) often make so-called ‘surprises’ for each other (pronounced the Dutch way). At school they draw lots and are given the assignment to not only buy a small present for the classmate they’ve drawn, but also wrap this gift in a creative way. At Rolf’s Surprise Lab they get help to bring this creativity to a higher level.
With sparkling eyes and grand gestures, Adam (8) talks about his fire-breathing dragon. Although it is still in the bag because the papier-mâché is still wet, his plans are big. On the advice of surprise expert Rolf Hut, he collected aluminium foil, a switch and small lights this afternoon to transform the beast into a truly magical fire-breathing creature at home. He came up with the idea himself that pieces of mirror in the mouth would make it even cooler. “Then it looks like his mouth glows even more.”
Eight-year-old Maurits thinks a technical surprise like this is much cooler than a normal one. He is in Year 5 and is making a surprise for the first time. A papier-mâché penguin for his classmate who loves penguins. It will have glowing eyes: “But I won’t make them red, or it will be a horror penguin.”
Adam and Maurits are two of the many children who visited the TU Delft Science Centre last Saturday to take their surprise gift to the next level. They drew names at school for Sinterklaas and want to surprise their classmates not only with a cool gift, but above all with a technical masterpiece of a craft project.
Fixture
That was first possible ten years ago in Rolf’s Surprise Lab. Since then, the event has grown into a permanent fixture during the Sinterklaas season. It is named after Rolf Hut, who is not only a TU scientist but also a surprise enthusiast. That love previously resulted in the book Knotsgekke surprises voor iedereen (Crazy Surprises for Everyone, 2016) and explanatory videos on YouTube.
But Rolf’s Surprise Lab is the highlight of the physicist’s Sinterklaas surprise oeuvre. Every year, Hut rounds up a group of ‘surprise experts’. His wife and son, as well as co-creator and former TU spokesperson Michel van Baal, sketch technical additions to the surprise ideas of the children who visit on large sheets of paper.
Movable parts
That’s the best way to work, Hut explains. “We leave the aesthetic side alone; that’s their thing. We help them to add a bit of technology.” So many children arrive with a craft project that is almost finished. It is then up to the experts to come up with a technical addition: movable parts, lights, sound. The children receive the materials free of charge from the TU.
And then comes the fun part: crafting. In most cases, with a little help from mum or dad or one of the students walking around. Daoud (10) gets help from his father (an Industrial Design Engineering alumnus) with his Sushi Point box, complete with chopsticks, a soy sauce dish and, of course, the sushi. When the recipient picks up a piece of sushi with the chopsticks, a sound is heard.
Circuit for sound
His mum is helping his sister Ikhlas (11) craft a large minion, known from the Despicable Me films. Ikhlas is installing a circuit, she explains. ‘When you pull a hair on the minion, the two wires connect and make a sound.’ With this yellow contraption, she is taking revenge — last year, the Holle Bolle Gijs for her Efteling-loving teacher collapsed (Ed. the Efteling is a large magic and fairytale themepark). This year, she is confident that her surprise gift will remain upright.
Nikkie (9) and her father walk out the door with a filled bin bag. Delta is allowed to take a peek: inside, we see a real miniature gym for her gymnastics-mad friend. There is a light in the vaulting horse and erasers in the large mat. The other gift (pens) is at the bottom and appears when the recipient presses the syringe on the side.
Not clumsy at all
Even after ten years, this annual weekend remains a celebration, says Hut after explaining electrical circuits to a girl (for her chessboard, on which a square lights up when the king is placed on it). “I used to be called clumsy. I want to show these children that they are not clumsy at all. They just need a little push.”
The 360 (free) places for this weekend were filled within an hour and a half. Hut: “Partly, that’s a shame, because it means that children who are less familiar with the Science Centre don’t get a chance. Whereas it’s precisely those children who have no interest in technology or the TU that you want to plant a technical seed in.”
Expanding nationwide
To reach them, Rolf’s Surprise Lab set up shop in the Delft Library last year. Hut would love to expand nationwide. Thanks to an inspired fellow scientist, this has already been achieved in Eindhoven.
Back to the Science Centre. What tip does surprise expert Hut have for the tech hobby surprise maker who couldn’t get a spot at his Surprise Lab? Singing greeting cards, he says after a moment’s thought. “With these, you can add sound to your surprise without having to be very technical. You can even record your own voice on some of them!”
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