As a secondary school graduate, choosing the next step in your education may feel like a scary leap. Nothing to worry about: Pulsed Empower is here to support you. This inspiring, challenging program enables secondary school graduates to uncover their uniqueness and put it to satisfying use. Empower focuses on your wants, needs and abilities and helps you find the direction that fits you like a glove.
Empower is all about the strength of creating. The emphasis is on learning through experiencing, doing, sometimes failing, and starting all over to finally succeeding. That is why books are optional, not mandatory. Empower turns every day into an innovative field trip filled with technology, entrepreneurship, and creativity. At the same time, you stay socially connected with other students and lecturers.
Physically impaired people are often quite dependent on their service dogs. The dog is the main help around the house and for this he needs to be rewarded. However, it’s not always possible and easy to do this by the owner. To create a strong bond between physically impaired people and their service dog, we decide to create a portable cookie dispenser.
This project is about ‘Marieke’ and her service Dog ‘Bolan'. Marieke uses an electric wheel chair as she suffers from a progressive muscle disease (SMA) and her dog Bolan helps her with a lot of different tasks. However the problems she faces is that she cannot reward her service dog when she takes him out. She really wanted a device that can reward her dog when she goes on a walk with him. Raymond and I decided to take it up as a design challenge to help her with the problem.
We started off by first talking to Marieke and writing down all the important points. We later visited her home to get a look into her daily life. When we first met Marieke, we were a bit overwhelmed. We had assumed that she would be very limited in her ability to do daily tasks but our assumptions were challenged as we discovered that she was quite independent. Her house was full of gadgets and other technological aids and she had some very ingenious solutions to her problems. For a long time, she had wanted a device that could help give her dog treats at the push of a button, but her insurance just wouldn’t cover it. We brainstormed with Marieke about the requirements and possible solutions for this problem.
All through the design process, we gave Marieke and FysiekFabriek continuous updates about our developments. When our design was more defined, we presented our idea to multiple stakeholders at Fysiekfabriek. We connected with a couple of service dog trainers, another physically disabled person with a service dog and a nurse who works with service dog. As a final solution, we designed a portable “cookie machine”, a device that dispenses a cookie when Marieke presses a button. The device is specifically made for her needs, so its solves her problem the best. We’re are very close to delivering our actual end product. Hopefully Marieke will use it with great joy and ease.
Smashing the status quo, breaking the mould, shaping a new one … just to break it again. Our fast-paced, ever-changing world demands equally evolving education. That is why Fontys Pulsed Academy puts its daring spin on it, based on better, broader, exciting design-based learning. Our curriculum is never finished, our thirst for knowledge and skills is never quenched, and our ambition is never fully achieved.
Fontys Pulsed Academy offers student-centred, talented-based teaching approaches captured in five act-provoking programs. These are primarily aimed at a challenging cocktail of technology & craftmanship, entrepreneurship & business, and design & creativity. Additionally, we offer expeditions for educators to take ownership and (re)design the education of their institute.
As a secondary school graduate, choosing the next step in your education may feel like a scary leap. Nothing to worry about: Pulsed Empower is here to support you. This inspiring, challenging program enables secondary school graduates to uncover their uniqueness and put it to satisfying use. Empower focuses on your wants, needs and abilities and helps you find the direction that fits you like a glove.
Empower is all about the strength of creating. The emphasis is on learning through experiencing, doing, sometimes failing, and starting all over to finally succeeding. That is why books are optional, not mandatory. Empower turns every day into an innovative field trip filled with technology, entrepreneurship, and creativity. At the same time, you stay socially connected with other students and lecturers.
Smashing the status quo, breaking the mould, shaping a new one … just to break it again. Our fast-paced, ever-changing world demands equally evolving education. That is why Fontys Pulsed Academy puts its daring spin on it, based on better, broader, exciting design-based learning. Our curriculum is never finished, our thirst for knowledge and skills is never quenched, and our ambition is never fully achieved.
Fontys Pulsed Academy offers student-centred, talented-based teaching approaches captured in five act-provoking programs. These are primarily aimed at a challenging cocktail of technology & craftmanship, entrepreneurship & business, and design & creativity. Additionally, we offer expeditions for educators to take ownership and (re)design the education of their institute.
