Experience the change with the 20 TU/e projects at the Dutch Design Week
With the 'Drivers of Change' exhibition on the Ketelhuisplein, TU/e is once again at the heart of the Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven from October 21 to 29.
Are you ready for the Dutch Design Week? This world-famous Eindhoven event is entirely dedicated to innovative and surprising design, with locations throughout the city. Once again this year, TU/e has a prominent role in the program with the exhibition 'Drivers of Change' on the Ketelhuisplein at Strijp-S. Through twenty projects, visitors are taken into the world of our bright minds, enthusiasts, passionate researchers and designers who are working on the solutions of tomorrow. Get ready for it with 5 highlights you should not miss!
The TU/e projects selected in 2023 range from beautifully designed concept cars by student teams, to architectural innovation and a real lab that allows the visitor into the heart of the creation.
A complete overview of the Drivers of Change 2023 exhibition, as well as previous years, can be found at https://ddwtue.nl. Visits to Ketelhuisplein and the exhibitions are free and freely accessible throughout the week.
BRIC pavillon
No steel or concrete, but flax, wood waste and hemp - these are the natural materials from which the organically designed BRIC pavilion is built. Moreover, the pavilion exhibits furniture made from mycelium (fungal threads). Can bio-based materials become the building material of the future? This would be a welcome move towards more sustainable building, without depleting our reserves of raw materials. BRIC explores how it can be done.
The BRIC pavilion can be visited at the exhibition, where it is part of the buildings/elements that feature other projects.
Researcher: Snehal Hannurkar
Storing digital data in DNA
By 2030, we'll probably be producing more digital data than we can store. The solution? Store our digital data in DNA. To do this, you make a "hard drive" from DNA - the natural molecule of information. It can store enormous amounts of data - all the data on our current Internet could fit into the trunk of a car. It also has a much longer shelf life: up to 10,000 years.
Data storage uses synthetic DNA - it’s a molecule containing the DNA chain with the 4 letters A, C, T and G. Just as nature uses these letters to store information, the same can be done with digital data.
However, reading, copying and storing files still requires a lot of fine tuning because the molecules interact with each other, causing data to be lost. TU/e researchers have now managed to improve the storage and reading of DNA-encoded data. They created tiny capsules containing magnets that prevent interaction between molecules. We expect DNA data storage to be available sometime in the next 10 years.
Researcher: Bas Bögels
CURA - a robot working in a hospital
Robots already help us in many ways. A well-known example is in logistics, where they carry out their automized work following lines in a warehouse. This works well, although nothing must -literally- get in their way.
At TU/e, we’re developing a robot that can function in a dynamic hospital environment. CURA has a camera with which it can recognize objects and situations using the latest AI techniques, and respond or anticipate them, for example to a door that suddenly swings open, a visitor crossing the corridor, or a bed being moved. In this way, CURA can support logistical work like bringing medication from the pharmacy to the right department or even moving rolling containers of bedding.
CURA has not been designed to replace hospital employees but to work with them. It’s agile, friendly, and can find its own way in an ever-changing environment. CURA exemplifies the ultimate interplay between humans and robots.
Want to see robots in action? Our cheetahs (a kind of robot dog) will also play a game of football. And mark your calendar for July 2024, when the RoboCup World Cup will take place in Eindhoven, where Tech United will defend the world title with their soccer robots.
Researcher: Joep Selten
Human Repair Shop
If you have a small wound on your skin, your body usually easily repairs itself. However, this becomes more difficult if something is wrong somewhere else in your body. In some cases, you need to have a transplant or an operation where a plastic or metal prosthesis is inserted into your body.
Researchers from the Materials-Driven Regeneration research program are working on a "human repair shop": biodegradable materials that can be implanted to encourage your body to self-repair. Examples are a plastic tube that serves as a temporary 'scaffold' for a new blood vessel or heart valve, or material that instructs cartilage, tendons, bone or kidney tissue to self-repair.
While your body is repairing itself, cells break down the scaffold material. This method can also be used outside the human body, for example to make a personalized (mini-)organ that can be used to test a drug in the lab- a great alternative to animal tests.
Researcher: Hannah Brouwer
Visionary
ChatGTP, Midjourney, Stable Diffusion: the number of accessible AI tools to generate text and images is exploding. Although this technology is impressive, how can we put it to use in our daily work and lives? The AI-moodboarding tool Visionairy shows that the future of AI is not about the individual models, but in the creative ways we combine them.
Visionairy combines five different AI models that each provide a piece of functionality. In this way, the tool creates a unique experience that enriches, yet respects the user's skills and creativity. The tool has an infinite image feed that adapts to your behavior and uses AI-generated keywords that inspire new search directions. You can also chat with, merge, or modify images and bring your sketches to life. Therefore, you can be creative, even when you’re not.
Researcher: Mathias Verheijden
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