Category: News

In June 2019, another edition of ‘Experimental techniques in mechatronics’ took place in Eindhoven. Participants from all over the world registered and since the group size of this hands-on training is limited to 8 participants, it was sold out. The level of recommendation was amazing: a tremendous score of 9.4 out of 10. The group was quite diverse: participants came from U.S.A., Brazil, Turkey, Germany and the Netherlands. This resulted in vivid discussions which contributed to the training.

To the question ‘How likely is it that you recommend this training to others?’, participants responded with an average score 9.4 out of 10. Some of their comments were: “Very happy I joined, I should have done so a year ago! Nice small groups and impressive professional guidance.” “Great set-up, very professional with the small group. Very experienced teachers.” “Well prepared. Impressive teaching material.”

The training is intended for people who use dynamic frequency domain techniques to evaluate the behavior of precision mechatronic devices. Through this course, participants will become able to select the correct measurement method and instrumentation, perform reliable and accurate measurements of the dynamic behavior of precision mechatronic devices, as well as to assess and present the results in a meaningful way.

Since the training sold out early, we decided to plan an extra edition for December 2019, which is now open for registration.

Fotoburo Brabant/Ruben Schipper

During the Dutch System Architecting Conference in ‘s Hertogenbosch, High Tech Institute challenged visitors with a leadership game. Participants were asked for the best way to respond in critical work situations, by using the Rose of Leary theory of behavioral interaction. This challenge was a sneak peek for Jaco Friedrich’s training ”Leadership skills for architects and other technical leaders.”

Visitors participated enthusiastically in the leadership challenge, where Jaco Friedrich came up with situations like:

• Your project lead says with a loud voice: “I just got a call from our new client that the product is failing! What the hell have you been doing?”
• Your project lead says with strong, cold voice: “Either you do what I tell you, or your replacement will.”

People that take leadership seriously will give direction. They’ll look for opportunities to get others to buy-in. But, in order to get everyone on board, there are several positions within Leary’s ‘rose’ that will need to be utilized.

Participants were asked to step into the shoes of the employee and think of the best way to respond in order to improve the situation. It appeared that understanding the model as a theory is one thing. The practical application in real cases, as presented, is something else and created quiet some interesting discussions. Steven Anker, working at Sogeti High Tech, got the most anwers right and won the challenge.

Interested in our course program? Have a look at our online description.

High Tech Institute was one of the sponsors of the Dutch System Architecting Conference that was organized on 20 June, 2019 at the Verkadefabriek in ‘s Hertogenbosch.

On 25 June High Tech Institute organizes its first edition of the training Introduction Deep Learning. During this one-day masterclass, participants will get  up-to-speed with deep learning and receive an overview of deep learning techniques.

Deep learning is one of the fastest developing fields in artificial intelligence. The training Introduction Deep Learning will give an overview of the latest deep learning trends and techniques through both lectures and exercises.

The one-day masterclass is intended for software and hardware engineers, application and process engineers, system architects and managers with technical background. Prerequisites for the course are basic mathematics skills and basic (python) programming skills. After this 1-day masterclass participants will have an understanding of the latest artificial intelligence and deep learning techniques.

Interest in high quality practical design knowledge for ultra-clean systems remains very strong, according to High Tech Institute and Mechatronics Academy. This conclusion comes as the number of participants has continued to increase for the training session: ‘Basics & design principles for ultra-clean vacuum’.

Last April the training partners organized a brand-new, tailor-made, in-company version of their ultra-clean vacuum course for an onboarding program of a large OEM in the South of The Netherlands. This exclusive edition is the first of a series and it received excellent reviews.

Adrian Rankers of Mechatronics Academy was enthusiastic about the excellent scores the training received. “The group of 12 participants remarked that the training is unique and useful for designers working within the vacuum environment. They also commented that there is a good balance between theory and practice”, said Rankers.

Trainers Mark Meuwese, Sven Pekelder (both Settels Savenije group of companies) together with Dick van Langeveld, Theo Mulder and David Schijve (all members of Nevac) have put great effort in the quality and effectiveness of his courses. Their contributions and practical experience are the real value of the training. These top experts have an extensive track record in the high-tech industry.

‘Designing modules for use in ultra-clean vacuum is a challenging task’, says Rankers. ‘Our training is a valuable source for getting up to speed in that field. Our trainers are working full time in the industry, and I am very happy that they want to share and transfer their valuable knowledge with such great enthusiasm.’

Topics of discussion in the ultra-clean vacuum training are vacuum fundamentals, flow of gases, total and partial pressure, pumps, leak testing, engineering aspects, mechatronics in vacuum, design for qualification and system design and budgeting.

The regular open enrollment edition of the ultra-clean vacuum training is also very popular. The next edition, scheduled for June 2019, is already fully booked. As a result, High Tech Institute has planned an extra open enrollment edition starting on 4 November, 2019.

Due to the great interest and need for knowledge about the influence of passive damping in precision technology, the High Tech Institute and Mechatronics Academy are organizing a second, extended-edition of the new training Passive damping for high tech systems next autumn.

The first edition of the training Passive damping for high tech systems, last April, was fully booked. Participants came from high-tech OEMs, research institutes and first-tier suppliers, both from the Netherlands and abroad. “The brand-new training was unanimously praised by a very enthusiastic group of twelve participants with good interaction,” said Hans Vermeulen.

The only drawback was the somewhat short duration. Participants found two and a half days a little lean. They expressed the wish to add half a day to have more time to be able to work out a case. One of the participants even advised to extend the training to a full week. As a result, trainers Kees Verbaan and Hans Vermeulen, guest speaker Stan van der Meulen and course leader Adrian Rankers have decided to extend the coming edition, that starts on 19 November, by half a day. “That way we create more time for different exercises,” says Rankers.

The enthusiasm about the content and the trainers was shared by everyone. “Passive damping is part of a complex dynamic world and I really liked the diversity of the course,” one participant noted.

Various topics were mentioned as useful elements, such as ‘how to adjust the stiffness contribution of the damper’, ‘how to design a damper made of rubber’, ‘aspects in the different design steps’, ‘differences in narrow and broad band damping’, ‘how to model a system with passive damping’ and ‘how to select materials for passive damping’. One participant expressed his surprise: “Dampers made out of liquid, never thought about that!” Another summarized: “Excellent training, very inspiring, I already have multiple ideas how to use passive damping in actual systems.”

According to Kees Verbaan, “Participants in last April’s edition were mainly from high-end companies that design systems with high demands on accuracy. Despite the diversity of application areas, varying from stages and handlers to beam lines, most participants appeared to be somehow active in the field of dynamics and wanted to understand the possibilities of damping for their particular area.”

Due to the range of the participants, each of them favored different topics. For some, modeling and optimization was the most instructive, while others were more interested in rules of thumb and understanding of dampers. “This is not a math course,” said Verbaan, continuing, “Because of the global approach to this topic, most of them were helped by the overview that was created by the combination of topics. As a result, the content fit different people in different ways.”

High Tech Institute has entered into a joint collaboration with Cydrill, a Hungarian specialist focusing entirely on training courses about safe software. The first training course ‘Secure coding in C and C ++’ successfully took place in Eindhoven recently.

Founders of Cydrill, Ernõ Jeges and László Drajkó, recently signed an agreement with Ger Schoeber and René Raaijmakers of High Tech Institute. Cydrill is a Hungarian Institute that offers a large number of training courses in the field of secure coding. Security for embedded systems is one of its specialities.

Cydrill director Ernõ Jeges explains that his goal is not to educate people about hacking, but to develop paranoia. ‘This emotion is important,’ he says. ‘It has an impact impossible to achieve with online training.’ According to László Drajkó, secure encryption doesn’t require extra time. ‘It takes time to learn it, but not afterwards.’

Ten people took part in the first edition of the Secure coding in C and C ++ training course that High Tech Institute organised in collaboration with Cydrill. They gave the trainer Ernõ Jeges an average score of 8.4 out of 10 for his training. Some of the feedback from the participants read as follows: ‘Very good training session, with many illustrative examples to make me aware of software security issues’; ‘Course was very interesting and I found it very revealing ’; ‘I appreciate the content of the course, the trainer lived up to expectations.’

‘In our training course you don’t learn how to hack, but you do learn how to sideline hackers,’ say Ernõ Jeges (2nd from left) and László Drajkó (left) from Cydrill. They recently entered into a joint collaboration with René Raaijmakers (2nd from the right) and Ger Schoeber (right) from High Tech Institute.

High Tech Institute introduces a new EMC course for engineers who work on motion and power conversion systems. The first edition is planned for next May in Eindhoven, Netherlands.

The focus of this training is on EMC problems that occur in the development and qualification of a wide variety of motion systems. In this field, engineers, designers, architects, project leaders and quality engineers typically encounter low-frequency disturbances caused by motion and power conversion systems.

The knowledge received from this course is applicable to systems from a few milliwatts, like small robotic systems – up to megawatts, like container transportation and wireless power transfer, large robot systems and automated manufacturing.

Industry experts Mart Coenen, Ramiro Serra, Mark van Helvoort and Ernest Bron will teach the new course, with an emphasis on choosing a proper cable, filter, grounding and shielding. Moreover, participants will learn how to use LTSpice tooling to analyze systems consisting of a motor drive, filter, cable and actuator. In addition to lectures, there will be several practical demonstrations, as well as hands-on sessions.

The 3-day course ‘EMC for motion systems’ is developed by High Tech Institute’s content partner Technical Training for professionals.

High Tech Institute rolled out a very successful first edition of the one day boot camp course ‘How to be successful in the Dutch high tech work culture’. The April edition got an overall score of 9.1 out of 10.

Eight participants from five companies and different nationalities attended. Participants commented very positive.

‘Really helpful and to the point. It shed light on many aspects of Dutch work culture that I wasn’t aware of prior to joining. Exercises are the best bit.’

‘Very useful. In-depth for one day. Very pleased.’

‘Very good advises and tips.’

‘It was most interesting to see the different nationalities present and their views on Dutch culture.’

Participants said they would certainly recommend this training to others. The question ‘Would you recommend this training to others?’ got an average score of 9.6.

The one day boot camp course ‘How to successfully perform in the Dutch high tech work culture’ was developed by High Tech Institute’s content partner Settels Savenije & Friedrich. In the past months these experts in soft skills and leadership organised several knowledge sessions in Eindhoven and welcomed over 200 expats. One of them was hosted by The Holland Expat Center South.

High Tech Institute received requests from high tech companies and will plan several editions this year. The next edition is scheduled for 26 August 2019 in Eindhoven. It is open for everyone to attend.