Wim van der Hoek Award 2024 nominations
This year, the jury has received four nominations for students who applied existing or new design principles in their graduation work in an exciting manner.
The Wim van der Hoek Award honours the Dutch doyen of design engineering principles, Wim van der Hoek, who passed away in 2019 at the age of 94, and aims to promote and stimulate the discipline of mechanical engineering. The award includes a certificate, a trophy produced by the Leidse instrumentmakers School and a sum of money (sponsored by the High Tech Systems Center of the Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) EAISI institute). It will be presented for the nineteenth time on Thursday, 14 November under the auspices of DSPE, during the second day of the Precision Fair in Den Bosch (NL).
The award is presented every year to the person(s) with the best graduation project in mechanical engineering design at a university of technology (TU) or university of applied sciences (UAS) in the Netherlands and Belgium. Criteria include the quality of the design, its substantiation and innovativeness, as well as its suitability for use in teaching design principles. This year, the jury, under the presidency of DSPE board member Jos Gunsing (MaromeTech), received four nominations, submitted by the graduation supervisor/professor of each student concerned. The nominations came from TU/e, TU Delft and HU UAS in Utrecht.
Zola Fung – A – Jou (TU Delft)
WASP: a Wasp-inspired Surgery Needle for Prostate Cancer Procedures – Design and Prototyping of a Low-friction Actuation Mechanism
Zola first conducted a literature study on biologically inspired needles, which she – very exceptionally – got published in a journal, and participated in a project on steerable wasp-inspired needles for prostate interventions. She recreated the ovipositor mechanism in a 0.9 mm thick needle and then developed a special actuation mechanism. She had the needle manufactured by two instrument makers and evaluated her prototype successfully in prostate-tissue phantoms that she made herself. Zola has evolved into as a hard-working and highly organised researcher, who has combined biological operating principles creatively with various manufacturing techniques and origami design.
Bas Huisman (TU/e)
Architectural Design of a Deployment Mechanism for the Keck II Telescope’s Adaptive Secondary Mirror, including Research into the Implications of using CFRP for its Backing Structure
At TNO, Bas designed an innovative concept that enables the quick folding away of the Keck II Adaptive Secondary Mirror (ASM) during observations and the reproducible return to its position. In addition, he investigated whether it is possible to manufacture the supporting structure of the ASM from fibre-reinforced material. After an in-depth analysis, he opted for a mechanism with one rotation axis for moving the ASM, in which he used flexible elements cleverly to ensure that the design met the requirements. In addition to being extremely practical, Bas is very strong analytically and eager to learn.
Jan – Pieter Rijstenbil (TU/e)
Automated Placement of Micronuts for Laser Spot Welding
Jan-Pieter designed a machine to automatically place a pattern of M1 nuts with micrometer precision on a 0.3 mm thick base plate for laser welding. It is ideally suited to ‘VanderHoekean’ design because of the many aspects that he had to address. After a careful process analysis, he chose a modular concept that met all the requirements. He validated critical components and subprocesses at a very early stage, carried out experiments, and consulted frequently with specialist companies for manufacturing and surface treatment. Many of the techniques he used are groundbreaking. Jan-Pieter is an outstanding student who combines enormous inventiveness and creativity with great practical skills.
Daan Vis (HU UAS)
| The Multifunctional Robot Hand Daan’s assignment was to design a robot hand that can replace the manual manipulation of cheese film rolls, pallets and sheets of cardboard. Based on as many standard components as possible, he developed three designs, each of which delivers a specific price-performance ratio, and provided a good design justification for each of the solutions. He developed all partial solutions at component level and pulled out all the stops to test the final solution with, among other things, strength calculations and an analysis of the dynamic force play. He also documented and substantiated the project very clearly and thoroughly. Daan has a feel for technology, is professional, has a critical attitude and can clearly fathom and discuss problems. |
Visit the Wim van der Hoek award presentation on November 14 at the Precisionfair (Brabanthallen) hal 2.