During ‘Meet the Professor’, four 3mE professors visited several Delft primary schools. They gave fifth and sixth grade pupils guest lessons dressed in togas. Not surprisingly, the togas piqued the children’s curiosity. ‘What are you wearing? Why are you wearing that? Do you always have that gown on?’ One pupil saw Paul Breedveld in the corridor with his flapping toga and asked, ‘Are you a magician?’
Paul Breedveld (professor of Medical Instruments & Bio-Inspired Technology) went to the Maurice Maeterlinck special education school. Paul grew up during a time when space travel was popular. He explained that as a little boy he was interested in three things: the human body, engineering and drawing. He chose engineering as a study in the end and now designs medical equipment. He showed them pliers and tubes that can move in all directions. ‘That’s cool!’ the pupils shouted.
That's cool!
Pupils Maurice Maeterlinckschool
Cavity Sam
‘Keyhole surgery’ and the kind of medical instruments that make this possible is one of the topics Jenny Dankelman (professor of Medical Instruments & Bio-Inspired Technology) talked about with the children during her guest lesson at the Bernadette Maria School. The children did some work of their own as well, passing a pencil through a nut, after which another pupil had to hold the nut and then draw a house. This turned out to be much trickier than imagined. This is what it feels like to have to operate through a small hole, Jenny explained.
‘It’s great to see how quickly children come up with so many different ideas in just 10 minutes,’ Just Herder says.’ Just (professor of Interactive Mechanisms and Mechatronics) talked about robots in healthcare, in particular aids to help compensate for muscle weakness. He showed various types and then the children were asked to think of an assignment, which was to play football in a wheelchair if you have no strength to kick the ball. The children broke up into groups to find solutions: a lever system to make a kind of artificial leg kick the ball by hand; an electric or even magnetic system that allows you to do this through a button; something similar that moves the weakened leg so that you can feel whether you’ve hit the ball; or a simple bumper that allows you to drive hard against the ball, etc.
One student actually wanted to know how long Just studied: well, there’s the initial study, then the PhD, then the postdoc – all in all, about 10 years. ‘Wow, that’s my whole life!’ the student exclaimed.
It’s great to see how quickly children come up with so many different ideas in just 10 minutes.
Just Herder
Wiebren de Jong (professor of Large-Scale Energy Storage) gave a guest lesson to the sixth grade at DSV primary school. The pupils worked on solutions for a house that had to be made gas-free. They worked on this in groups and came up with fun solutions: small windmills, solar panels, a water wheel, a heat pump, using the electric car, grass on the roof (to sequester carbon).
When the sixth grade teacher asked whether anyone wanted to become a professor later in life, she got a muted response. Ten years is a long time to study....
