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.
Our Associate Degree students worked on cool innovative projects as a part of their challenge in the work field. Challenges that lead to meaningful and practical products for the collaborating companies, while the students apply their skills and theory into explicit action. This way, they transform into the person they are destined to be: the self-directed professional of the future.
3D-printing is often seen as the future way of producing. More durable, decreasing the amount of wasted materials and minimising the footprint. So, Brian Vullers and his fellow-students were challenged by Tesla to come up with a solution to decrease the repair time of a Tesla in service: “We were told about the issue they faced and we were given lots of freedom to find a solution in our own way – an open-end challenge. I liked that, because I already had several ideas how I could solve the problem.”
The collaboration between Pulsed and Tesla showed that a new fresh look, with the right approach, can deliver surprising, but effective results. “We were amazed by how the students come up with out-of-the-box ideas. Several students, including Brian, came up with a 3D-printed product to improve the installation process of the battery. No complicated tool to solve the problem, but simple, yet very effective,” Léana Perdriau, Tooling Engineer at Tesla, explains. “We have three working prototypes. Right now, we are looking into implementing the tools into our service organisation.”
Working directly with companies also gives the students more insights into becoming a young professional. Brian mentioned: “It was very nice to experience being in such a big company. I was positively surprised about the open atmosphere and the jokes between the colleagues.” Also Martin Bron, Technical Development Manager at Tesla, is enthusiastic about the project: “we definitely want to do this more often. It is not just the results, but also interesting to see how the students approach the challenge. Also, it is a good way to get to know potential new colleagues.”
Wefabricate is dedicated to produce high-quality products in which environmental impact and durability are key. Tackling food and packaging waste is one of their projects. This starts with buying the right amount of needed groceries. Therefore, Wefabricate developed a refill process, where the consumer can buy the needed amount. Our students were challenged to improve the current design and increase the efficiency.
Joep Hurst, one of the AD students, says: “A challenging assignment, so I was very motivated to deliver the best result possible. I worked on improving the actuator in the machine. I enjoyed the freedom, which we got. And it is very cool that my prototype might be used by a real company. Our input was valued and now we are discussing how Wefabricate can implement our creations into their production.”
“It was great to see the student’s ideas. They came up with many different solutions and they thought of unique ways to solve complex problems,” explains Teun van de Sande, Head of Product Development at Wefabricate. “The proposition from Pulsed was also different than other studies. Normally students do several projects at the same time. The AD-students had 5 weeks to fully focus on this project.”
Joep also mentioned the advantage of doing projects at companies this way: “To me, this is a different way of having a look into a company. I also learned how I can be of value to a company. Both as a student and in the future.”
One of Holst Centre’s missions is to improve people’s physical and mental health. To support people with breathing, the company is developing a breathing guidance shirt. A technical innovation, with a human-centred focus. Just the way we like it at Pulsed. Holst Centre asked our students to look at the product with a fresh look. Maxime Smulders, AD student at Pulsed, explains her approach: “I kicked-off the challenge with research to get a better understanding of how people experienced the shirt. This way, I could develop improvements, based on user-experience. I also suggested to add extra modules to the shirt to increase the amount of solutions for which it can be used.”
Holst Centre was enthusiastic about the results of the student’s research. Maxime Dassen, Wearables Designer at Holst Centre – don’t get confused by the same name – said: “we enjoyed working with the students, because they come up with new ideas from a different viewpoint. Maxime, for example, showed us a different perspective due to the user research. Her hands-on approach taught us about an additional way to use the breathing guidance shirt. She will also join us for her internship, she will work via the same approach on other projects. I am convinced that she will deliver us more valuable insights.”
Student Maxime is happy with her internship: “I discovered what it is like to work in a big company and how they work there. At Holst Centre they focus a lot on research. During my mbo-study, I focussed a lot on building the product. With the AD, it is a mix of theory and practice. Therefore, I go deeper into the process and the idea behind the product.”
We want to thank Tesla, Wefabricate and Holst Centre for this great collaboration. And our AD students for your hard work. Because of you, the companies want to do more projects with Pulsed.
Do you also want to do projects for these kind of companies? You can get your hbo-diploma in 2 years with the Associate Degree Human-Centred Engineering.
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.
