Category: Testimonials

Passive damping is increasingly used by mechanical engineers designing for the high-tech industry. This was the reason for Patrick Houben, mechanical architect at Nobleo Technology, to attend the “Passive damping for high-tech systems” course at High Tech Institute.

Eindhoven-based Nobleo Technology is an engineering firm that takes on in-house development projects. It specializes in software, mechatronics and mechanics in three core areas: autonomous & intelligence solutions, embedded & electronics solutions and mechatronic systems. Patrick Houben has been employed there for two years as a mechanical architect with the business unit Mechatronic Systems. Originally a mechanical engineer, he’s worked his entire career at semicon companies, including Assembléon, when it was still called Philips EMT, and ITEC in Nijmegen.

“What I mainly do at Nobleo now is define the architecture in projects for customers, lay down concepts and support the project team,” Houben explains. “I’m working together with a team of mechatronic engineers. We ensure that customers’ wishes are properly embedded in the products or modules we design for them.”

“At Nobleo, we take care of the entire design process for the customer, including supervising the industrialization of the products in the customer’s supply chain. We do the latter together with Nobleo Manufacturing. We call this Design House+ and it’s catching on well. In addition to product development, we build and test the prototypes. During the industrialization process, we can efficiently incorporate necessary improvements in the design. The customer then has a fully equipped supply chain.”

Pragmatic, practical and applicable

The reason for taking the “Passive damping for high-tech systems” course at High Tech Institute was twofold, according to Houben: to broaden his technical knowledge and to be able to apply the acquired knowledge at his clients. He had some prior experience with applying damping, but mainly for isolation, to isolate highly dynamic modules from external vibrations, for example. “I had no experience with the applications from the course. It was surprising and new to me that damping, or suppressing, a single component can greatly improve system performance.”

The course lasted three days and included practical exercises and about six extensive study cases. Houben particularly liked the fact that the course quickly switched to design rules that were easy to apply. “We were given good study cases that showed that in a mechanical construction, you often have very little damping. And if you add a little bit of damping, you can gain a lot – that was really surprising to me as well. When I look at static components in the machines of our customers, for example, they’re often sandwiched in a long span where they can resonate quite strongly. If you can reduce that with passive damping, you can get better performance and increase bandwidths without much extra cost. I really found that very instructive and practical.”

In particular, the MRI scanner case, a doctoral research project by a TU Eindhoven student, resonated well with the course participants, Houben observed. “That was a clear and telling case. It involved a Philips MRI scanner where a person was placed in between two horizontal magnetic strips. Because of the positioning of the two strips, the top one could only be supported by two relatively narrow uprights. The stiffness of this construction was suboptimal and as a result of  the magnetic movements, the construction started to resonate on the uprights. By applying passive damping in the right place with the right mass and the right specifications, that whole mode disappeared. The damping mass was a simple thirty-pound plate suspended in rubber dampers and hardly added any cost to the scanner.”

Houben also appreciated the practical tip that you can install an oscillator app on your smartphone with which you can map resonances quite accurately and reason about the cause of the problems. “That helps you quickly move toward the right solution. I really liked that in the course – it was very pragmatic, practical and applicable.”

For Houben, the course was surprisingly easy to follow. “I’ve also attended courses that were a bit more difficult. Because I have a classical background in mechanical engineering, I had to build up my knowledge of dynamics, mechatronics and control technology as I progressed through my career. And yes, I sometimes noticed in courses that this was difficult, especially when faced with theoretical sums. But in this course, it wasn’t that difficult. I especially liked the interaction with the two teachers and how they coordinated with each other. It was very informal and open and there was also a lot of back and forth.”

Opportunities

Houben already sees his colleagues applying passive damping to their projects. For the client he’s currently working for, however, the concept is still new. “I’m thinking about how to introduce the acquired knowledge there, but I definitely see opportunities.”

This article is written by Titia Koerten, editor for High Tech Systems.

Dutch corporate tech culture can be a difficult hurdle for foreigners to overcome. That is why software developer ICT Strypes asked High Tech Institute to host an in-company corporate culture course for their Portuguese engineers.

When software developer José Rodrigues started working with his Dutch client, it was a culture shock for him. He had previous experience in the Netherlands: as an exchange student he had studied for a year in Groningen. Yet the high-tech work culture in real practice was still hard for him to get used to.

Rodrigues started out his career as a physicist, graduating from the University of Coimbra in Portugal. He quickly, however, moved into software engineering, where he ended up at ICT Strypes.

“I’m currently working on the drivers for a water cabinet that is responsible for cooling”, he says. “My job is writing software and testing it.”

ICT Strypes Portugal is originally a Dutch software development company. Today, they are based in Portugal, with facilities in Lisbon and Porto. But Dutch and Portuguese work cultures can be quite different. That is why the company decided to host a one-day culture training in Porto, ‘How to be successful in the Dutch high-tech work culture’ by High Tech Institute. Rodrigues was one of the students that took the course.

“There were two reasons to take it”, he says. “One was to better communicate with our Dutch contacts. The other was to learn from the Dutch high-tech ecosystem and see which of their lessons we can also apply here in Portugal.”

Natural selection

The training zoomed in on a specific semicon equipment company, and their unique way of doing things. “Even inside the Netherlands, they have a very atypical culture”, says Rodrigues. “My first impression was: this is chaos. It was organized chaos, but still chaos. When I first had to work with them, it felt quite confusing. But after a while you realize that it’s efficient in its own way, and that they get the job done.”

“The Dutch are in general very punctual and direct”, he continues. “Our customer on the other hand is more chaotic than the average Dutch company. It is a type of natural selection. They overcame a lot of challenges and converged on this way of working. And it really works.”

The course was taught by Jaco Friedrich, one of High Tech Institute’s trainers, who has decades of experience in the Dutch corporate tech culture. He came to Porto to teach the course to ICT Strypes’ engineers.

“It was much more engaging than I initially expected”, says Rodrigues. “Often, these kinds of courses tend to get a bit dense, particularly by the end. There is the trainer with their PowerPoint spewing facts all day long. This one was not anything like that. There were a lot of practical examples. We also engaged with the trainer, and with each other. We for example did simulations of real-life social situations.”

José Rodrigues, who writes and tests software at ICT Strypes in Portugal.
Credits: Nuno Vasco of NVSTUDIO

Code review

Because of the course, Rodrigues and his colleagues learned how to accomplish certain tasks more efficiently. One of the most important of those was the code review. In the past, there was some friction here between the Netherlands and Portugal. After the course, however, the process was reviewed and improved.

The course also improved the professional skills of the participants and provided solutions to common workplace problems. “One of the things I learned myself was how to push an idea forward”, says Rodrigues. “As an engineer, we sometimes have the tendency to be very perfectionist. We want our product to be 100 percent perfect. This, however, sometimes delays a project and causes it to stall. For the client, a 90 percent perfect product that can be delivered earlier is at times better than a 100 percent perfect one that is delivered too late. Making that switch in mindset was an important result of the course.”

Giving feedback, often a touchy subject for engineers, has equally improved since the course. “Sometimes it was hard giving feedback without seeming judgmental”, says Rodrigues. “Technical people tend to be sensitive about the quality of their work. The course taught us how to successfully communicate feedback without hurting or making the other person angry.  That’s something I now use very regularly.”

Criticism is one of the areas in which Dutch and Portuguese people differ heavily. Dutch professionals tend to be much more direct than their Portuguese counterparts. “If you are too direct with them, the average Portuguese person will get offended”, Rodrigues says. “That does not happen very often with a Dutch person. That of course does not mean that Dutch people have bad intentions, it is just part of their culture. A Portuguese professional however, will take that level of directness quite hard. That is another thing the course discussed and taught us to handle better.”

For Rodrigues, this training is a must-have for non-Dutch people working with high-tech companies in The Netherlands. “My first impression was overwhelming, he says. “Over time I learned to see that it actually made sense, and that their organization actually works very well. But if you’re not used to this, it can be a bit of a culture shock. If I had taken this course earlier in my career, I would have understood my Dutch colleagues from day one.”

José Rodrigues, who writes and tests software at ICT Strypes in Portugal.
Credits: Nuno Vasco of NVSTUDIO

This article is written by Tom Cassauwers, freelancer for Bits&Chips.

 

In a relatively short period, Strypes Portugal grew very fast. This meant that a new generation of project leads had to push the company forward. Which is why the software developer asked High Tech Institute to host a four-day in-company training course in Porto to sharpen their leadership skills.

When software engineer Miguel Barros joined Strypes four years ago, it was a very different company than what it is today. “I was the sixth employee here in Portugal”, he remembers. “At this stage the company was quite small. That, however, quickly changed.”

Barros currently works as a project lead. “But when you work at a company that grows this fast, you learn to do everything”, he says. “You end up taking on a lot of responsibilities. During my time here I did everything from changing coffee filters and working on branding and marketing, to now coordinating large software projects.”

“My role at Strypes is to supervise projects and people”, Barros says. “I’m responsible for a couple of projects. I make sure that they are on the right track and that the customer is happy with our performance. Today, I have a strong coaching role.”

Technology leadership

Because Strypes grew so fast in Portugal, the company wanted to improve the leadership skills of their project leads. Many of them were technical experts who didn’t have any formal leadership training. Which is why Strypes turned to the High Tech Institute, which hosted the course ‘Leadership skills for architects and other technical leaders’ in Portugal on just that topic.

“Project leads already have good people skills, otherwise they wouldn’t be in that role”, says Barros. “But we wanted to reinforce this. We wanted to give them the tools for dealing with people and show why they work. The project leads already had the right energy but lacked the formal training. This course gave them that. It taught us some tools to navigate the responsibilities that we face as leadership figures at a technology company.”

For Barros the course put a name to things he had been doing all along without realizing it. “I already do things like talk to stakeholders and give feedback to colleagues. I just do it organically. After this training, I had a framework I could base myself on.”

This is very helpful for someone like Barros, who also needs to teach others what he knows. “Sometimes you do something naturally, but you don’t know why it works well”, he says. “Which makes it hard to explain to others how to do the same thing. These tools allow you to understand. Now I can point them to frameworks and tools.”

Feedback

During the training, the participants could discuss practical cases. “The trainer made a big effort to use real-world examples”, says Barros. “We were always talking about real issues. If we had a problem in our team, we could discuss it, and learn how to solve it. The course was very focused on practice.”

Credits: Nuno Vasco of NVSTUDIO

One focus area was feedback. “After taking the course, I started giving feedback in a different way”, says Barros. “I learned how to respond critically to a person’s work without hurting them. That is a valuable skill I will probably use for the rest of my life.”

The course proved particularly valuable for younger project leads. These are people who got promoted after we saw potential in them”, says Barros. “They know a lot about the technical side of their job, but they need to learn how to deal with certain social problems and communication issues. That’s what the training did very well.”

This fits into Strypes philosophy of having technically trained managers. “That’s very important at our company”, says Barros. “In other companies you often see a disconnect between project leads who don’t have a technical background, and just manage Excel, and the technical people below them. We want to have project leads that can do the technical things, but also have good people skills and can support their team.”

Diving deeper

The course took four days in total, divided into two sessions of two days each. “It took place in our office in Porto”, says Barros. “There we gathered all our Portuguese project leads, which was an interesting experience in itself. It was almost a team-building exercise.”

In between the two sessions, there was a break of a few months. During that time, the participants could experiment with some of the things they learned. “We had about three months to apply what we learned”, says Barros. “We even created a buddy system, where each of us kept track of another participant. We could discuss together how we were using the tools, and which ones were particularly helpful to us. This way, you just don’t forget about what you learned after a few weeks. During the second session we reported on our experiences to dive deeper.”

Looking back on it now, Barros is very positive about the training and what he learned from it. It helped him become a better leader, and helped Strypes operate more smoothly. “When you take one of these courses there’s always skepticism”, he concludes. “You ask yourself: ‘will I actually use any of this in real life.’ In this course that was different. It was highly practical, and the trainer knew the culture of Dutch tech organizations very well. The things we learned really made a difference.”

This article is written by Tom Cassauwers, freelancer for Bits&Chips.

Stefan Rutjes learned the trade of system architect on the job at Demcon. Still, he was looking to deepen his knowledge. That’s why he took the systems architecting course at High Tech Institute.

Before Stefan Rutjes became a system architect, he had a long career path as an engineer. Initially, he designed offset printing machines. In 2019, he changed course and joined Demcon as a mechanical engineer. “I ended up more and more in the lead,” he states. “Thus, I did several large projects. Eventually, I became a system architect.”

That role was right up Rutjes’ alley. “You have to learn to think along with the customers, and I love that,” he says. “What are they struggling with? What are their challenges? You can design a great piece of technology for them, but if it doesn’t match what they want, you’re going to go off the rails.”

At Demcon, this is embedded in the design process. “The system architect is involved from the very start of a project,” Rutjes explains. “A system architect already sits at the table during the coordination phase with the customer, to give direction to the project and ask the important questions. Can we do this within Demcon? Is this a good fit for Demcon? Do we have the right people to tackle this issue?”

Deeper

Still, Rutjes felt he had more to learn. He found the depth he was looking for in the “System architect(ing)” course at High Tech Institute. “I wanted to go deeper. I learned this job mainly on the job. That gave me a good foundation. At Demcon, we already use frameworks for system architecture. Still, I felt it was time to explore systematic approaches outside of these frameworks. The training gave me additional tools and insights.”

It wasn’t just the content that helped Rutjes move forward. “The training is organized in a setting with a mixed group. A lot of views came together. My group consisted of a mix of software, mechanical and electrical engineers. A few of them also had previous experience in systems engineering. We all came from different companies. The interactions we had with each other were valuable. I learned a lot from hearing how others approach something.”

During the training, the emphasis is also on a practical case. This strengthens the learning process, contends Rutjes. “Parallel to the theory, you develop a case in a group. You get a customer question and based on that, you have to pitch a proposal at the end of the training. In the groups, different views of the same problem arise. That turned out to be very interesting. You see great divergence and sometimes convergence between ideas.”

After the training, Rutjes began taking positions much more consciously, more clearly articulating the needs of different groups. According to him, that’s the most important thing he learned. “Of course, I already did that before. But I became more aware of it. For example, I now regularly make time to examine the whole project from the customer’s point of view. Subsequently, I take another look at everything from the usability point of view.”

Since the training, Rutjes has been making more time to be a true system architect. “This is a role where sometimes you just have to be able to think in peace and quiet,” he points out. “During a hectic day, that’s difficult, but it’s necessary. That’s why I’m planning my schedule a little more liberally now. I like to keep thirty percent free space to be able to think quietly about things like system choices or who to talk to. Especially after the training, I started doing that much more consciously. I really take my time now.”

System puzzle

Rutjes is enthusiastic about his work as a system architect. “A system architect actually stands alongside the team. You can look at things from every position, but you’re not an expert in anything. You have to ask people questions so that they themselves come to insights and grow. In my opinion, the role of system architect isn’t about taking the lead but about inspiring others.”

Sometimes that involves things like consulting stakeholders and developing frameworks. But a system architect also plays an important informal role. “You drop by people and have a chat here and there,” Rutjes illustrates. “That sounds trivial, but it’s a crucial part of my job – I even put it on my calendar. It’s not always about the technical stuff, by the way. Sometimes the problem isn’t the technology but the collaboration in the team that’s going awry. I work on that, too.”

A system architect also has to learn to choose. “You’re constantly making trade-offs, for example between cost and performance,” Rutjes explains. “In turn, you have to run that by the stakeholders. You have to check with them that you’re making the right choice.”

And not just with the customer; the whole chain is important to a system architect. “Maybe you need to talk to the person installing the technology, or the one doing the maintenance. Such players are right next to the customer and sometimes they can make all the difference between failure and success. You’re constantly looking for the right people whose shoes you can step into for a moment.”

Rutjes is enjoying the profession of system architect very much. “The diversity appeals to me the most,” he concludes. “It’s like putting together a big puzzle. You have to make all the conditions, requirements, views and budgets come together nicely. Being able to successfully solve a puzzle like that is what makes this job so interesting to me.”

This article is written by Tom Cassauwers, freelancer for Bits&Chips.

When Johan Oedzes embarked on the Embedded Linux course at High Tech Institute, he wasn’t an absolute novice in the topic. However, reflecting on his journey, he confides, “I regret not taking the course earlier.”

“The combination of software and electronics has always piqued my interest due to the interaction with the tangible world,” says Johan Oedzes. This interest led him to the University of Twente, where he completed his Bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering and subsequently delved deeper into the field with a Master’s in embedded systems.

After graduating, Oedzes secured a position at a big company in Hengelo, focusing on C++ software engineering on Linux, albeit not in the embedded sense, he explains. “Although I learned a lot there, it started to bother me that I wasn’t working on embedded systems. I also felt that I was operating within the constraints that other people had thought out. I wanted to do the innovative and exploratory part of engineering too.”

One of his more experienced colleagues shared Oedzes’ sentiment and moved to Beeliners, based in Hengelo as well. The two kept in touch and his ex-colleague asked Oedzes whether he could share his contact information with the company’s owners. When commercial director Dennis Wissink called two years ago, Oedzes decided to take the plunge and he joined Beeliners as an embedded software engineer.

E-mobility

Beeliners immediately resonated with Oedzes’ interests, he says. “All our products combine a hardware design with embedded software engineering to create a prototype or deliver a proof of concept for our clients. Such projects may encompass compact medical appliances, intelligent gym equipment or innovative e-mobility devices. I’m currently working on a product in the e-mobility sector.”

One of Beeliners’ clients wasn’t satisfied with an externally sourced e-mobility control unit and approached the company for a solution. Upon the client’s request, Beeliners embarked on the venture of creating their own. The control unit links to two external systems: the e-mobility device on the one hand and the internet on the other. The internet connection enables communication with a backend server and reception of firmware updates.

“We separated the system into two parts,” Oedzes explains. “Everything that needs real-time behavior and has strict timing requirements runs on a subsystem with a microcontroller, interfacing with the e-mobility device. The code for the backend connection, the web interface and the product’s business logic run on an embedded Linux system with a C++ application.”

Flexibility

Despite having some experience in using embedded Linux systems from his studies at the university, setting one up was uncharted territory for Oedzes. It was during the e-mobility project at Beeliners that he self-educated and successfully created a tailored embedded Linux system based on the Yocto project. “You can find a lot of information about tools to create embedded Linux distributions, such as Yocto and Buildroot. It took some searching and experimenting, but eventually, we had a working system, even including functionality for remote updates.”

“At that time, Yocto felt like the most widely accepted solution. Renowned companies working on embedded Linux were using it and many software providers offer a Yocto recipe to create packages of their software with Bitbake. Recipes are a powerful concept, and it’s one of the reasons for choosing Yocto for this project.”

Because this was the first time that they created an embedded Linux system, Oedzes and his colleagues had some questions: “How do I know that my product is good? Does my embedded Linux system do what it’s meant to do? Is it secure?” Beeliners had progressed to initial field testing with a functioning prototype, but they wanted some validation of their approach before finalizing the product.

Initially, Beeliners thought of hiring external expertise for a comprehensive evaluation. However, they wanted a quicker, lighter approach and preferred building this expertise internally, Oedzes emphasizes. “This quest for knowledge led us to explore training options. Given a prior positive experience by one of our colleagues with High Tech Institute’s ‘Good software architecture’ course, we went looking for a similar program for embedded Linux, and we found that they had one.”

As Oedzes wasn’t an absolute novice in embedded Linux, he wondered whether the course was relevant for him. “We engaged in a conference call with Jasper Nuyens, the course’s trainer, who listened to our questions. He concluded that we were well on our way but had some knowledge gaps on embedded Linux basics and rules of thumb in this domain. He also reassured us of the course’s flexibility to accommodate our specific questions.” Consequently, Oedzes enrolled in the embedded Linux course.

Better decisions

While attending the embedded Linux course, Oedzes continued to benefit from Nuyens’ experience. It revealed to him that Buildroot would’ve possibly been more suitable for his use case. “If I had enrolled in the course earlier, maybe we would have still chosen Yocto, but we would have certainly given more consideration to Buildroot.”

Yocto excels in use cases where various devices each require some hardware-specific configuration as well as a common part. You can then build a Yocto project with various subconfigurations for each device to create a custom Linux image, Oedzes explains. “This is a powerful approach, but we didn’t need this for our use case: it has one device and just a couple of minor hardware revisions. Yocto wasn’t a bad choice, but in the course, I learned that Buildroot would have been a better fit.”

The course also allowed Oedzes to discuss various security aspects of his e-mobility project. “Jasper asked me the right questions, like: what problem are you trying to solve, what threats do you want to protect against, is your web interface externally accessible? It’s actually all quite logical, but I learned a lot by reasoning about our product with him.”

In retrospect, Oedzes would recommend potential participants to start earlier with the embedded Linux course than he did. “If you know that you need an embedded Linux system in your product and have some C/C++ programming experience, the course has immense value. Jasper covers various options and explains for which use cases each of them is suitable.”

Oedzes also found Nuyens’ explanation of cross-compiling software for another target architecture quite good for beginners. “Yes, figuring this out yourself is possible, but if you’re starting with embedded Linux, a course like this provides an encouraging head start and warns you about common errors.”

Even though Oedzes had previous experience with embedded Linux, the course armed him with important tips and insights. “I familiarized myself with new tools and gathered Jasper’s valuable advice about our e-mobility project. The experience of our current project coupled with the insights from this course gives me much more confidence for making better decisions for Beeliners’ future embedded Linux projects.”

This article is written by Koen Vervloesem, freelancer for Bits&Chips.

Sebastian Pricking from the German company Trumpf knows what he’s talking about when it comes to lasers. Yet when he was promoted to lead the development of a new fibre-based laser, technical knowledge alone wasn’t enough. He had to step into the world of system architecting. That’s why he took the Systems architect(ing) course at High Tech Institute.

Trumpf is one of Germany’s hidden champions. Even though it’s not a household name, the Trumpf Group builds high-tech machines for clients all over the world, and employs more than 16.000 people doing so. Key to the group’s success is that since their founding in 1923 they have been family-owned.

“We work on innovations where we might have to wait five to ten years before we see a return-on-investment”, says Sebastian Pricking. “If your company is listed on the stock market, looking that far ahead isn’t always possible.”

Photo credit : André Boden (Trumpf)

Pricking works in the laser development department at Trumpf. “We develop the concepts and do basic research”, he says. “We have other colleagues that specialise in the CAD designs and software. My team takes care of the system interfaces, the fundamental principles, and the basic concepts.”

They for example design the optical layout of a new laser. “We decide which kinds of mirrors to use, the coatings on the lenses, and so on, based on simulations and lab experiments”, says Pricking. “The actual mechanical integration is done by another team.”

Fibre laser

Pricking’s team works on solid-state lasers. These include YAG-based disks, but also fibre-based lasers, where the active medium is an optical fibre. Pricking currently heads a team that designs a new fibre-based laser.

The main applications of Trumpf’s lasers lie in industry, where they are generally used to treat metals. “Welding and cutting are some of the main applications of these lasers”, says Pricking. “One of the biggest industries we serve is automotive. Electromobility in particular is driving growth here. In the construction of batteries and electro-motors a lot of laser processes are needed. That market is growing significantly now.”

Lasers have been used for a while in those applications, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t more technological development to do. “Parameters like power and beam quality are still improving”, says Pricking. “We are also focusing on new features. We for example develop pulsed lasers. Here the light isn’t continuous, but comes in pulses with a higher peak power. That means that we need to time the pulses exactly right for the customer’s application.”

“We are definitely capable of offering suitable power levels for all the standard processes”, he says. “Solid-state lasers provide a broad range of power levels with an excellent wall-plug efficiency. One of our designs is a disk laser, which offers up to 24 kilowatt of infrared laser light.”

A disk laser has a thin active medium, which is placed on top of a heat sink. This solves issues around cooling. “In the past the active medium was often shaped like a rod”, says Pricking. “But that caused problems with the cooling, because it’s harder to apply a proper cooling to get the heat away. There are two possible solutions to this. Either you take the rod, and press it into a disk-shape, so the heat escapes more easily due to the increase surface. Or you take it and pull it, so that it becomes a fibre-based laser. We offer both of these designs to customers.”

Architect

Pricking only recently took on the position of lead in the fibre-based laser team. Which is why he followed the Systems architect(ing) course at High Tech Institute.

“I’m originally an experimental physicist”, says Pricking. “I can do the lab work, I can simulate and calculate all the necessary effects. But when I took over the team, my work changed. I had to collect the requirements from the stakeholders. I had to make chains of tolerances. I had all these interfaces which I had to organise. I had to make sure everything fit together. I needed to be a system architect. The issue was not the technical aspects of the job, but how to organise the design. The training ‘Systems architect(ing)’ gave me the tools and the framework which allowed me to see the big picture, and make sure I hadn’t forgotten anything. The framework showed me where I was on the right track, and where something was missing. It allowed me to close the gaps.”

The course taught the student how to apply the CAFCR framework.

“It allowed me to orient myself”, says Pricking. “I assume there are other, competing, frameworks as well. But this one fits our way of working nicely. It confirmed we were on the right track.”

Besides the content, Pricking also liked the way the course was taught. “I liked the mixture between, on the one hand, the experimental and group work, where you for example present the group’s results to solve a given challenge. And on the other hand, theoretical presentations about the model and how it works. The course took a week, and it was filled quite nicely. The entire experience was very entertaining. Me and the other students had dinner in the evenings, which allowed us to exchange experiences on how they do things in their companies.”

During the course ‘System architect(ing), the teaching team was responsive to the questions from the students. “I for example asked about which software can be used to apply this framework”, says Pricking. “The teacher mentioned that it wasn’t part of the course, but he still offered me a list of software tools we could use, together with the advantages and disadvantages of each.”

The lessons he learned during the course he now applies to his job. “With this new background, I checked everything again”, says Pricking. “I applied the model to the project. I saw that there were a few gaps, which we closed rapidly. This course helped us improve our laser concept. Our next project will for sure use this framework from the start.”

This article is written by Tom Cassauwers, freelancer for High-Tech Systems.

Working as a particle accelerator engineer, Curt Preissner ran into the limits of their design philosophy. Which is why he and a colleague took the Mechatronics system design (metron) – part 1 course at the High Tech Institute. This allowed them to introduce a new design approach into the synchrotron community, and better talk to vendors. ‘You need to be able to communicate what keeps you up at night.’

When Curt Preissner took the Metron – part 1 course at the High Tech Institute in Eindhoven, he was impressed by the local expertise, but also the amount of bikes riding around. ‘I bike to work here in the United States, but it’s not at all like in The Netherlands’, he looks back fondly.

Preissner is a mechanical engineer at the Advanced Photon Source (APS), a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science user facility at DOE’s Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois. This synchrotron, a type of circular particle accelerator, generates radiation in the form of x-rays. These x-rays in turn can be used to, for example, make images of the nanostructure of materials. Preissner is designing a very specific component in that system.

‘In a particle accelerator you accelerate electrons with the use of radio-frequency energy’, explains Preissner. ‘They then oscillate back and forth between the north and south poles of magnets, which produces what we call synchrotron radiation. In our machine, that radiation is in the form of x-rays. The energy of the x-rays we produce ranges from a few KeV all the way up to 100 KeV, so it’s highly penetrating. We take those x-rays and use something called a monochrometer to select a particular wavelength. The instrument I’m designing is an x-ray microscope called the PtychoProbe. This will be a unique, world-class instrument, and it will focus the x-rays down to five nanometers, which doesn’t exist right now. So it will be a world’s first. The x-rays will be focused on the sample and diffract off of it. The diffracted x-rays from the sample will then be collected by a detector, from which we process the data to generate an image that shows the structure of the sample.’

Curt Preissner, credit: Mark Lopez Argonne National Laboratory

New engineering philosophy

Preissner and his colleagues realised that this new design, which demands high degrees of precision, would require them to adopt a new engineering philosophy. ‘The specifications we work with can be very challenging’, says Preissner. ‘Generally, our system is static. Yet on the side of the beamline, things are moving. We have to scan our samples in a different way because the new beams are much more bright. This brightness will allow us to see our samples in greater detail. However, this high photon flux can actually damage the sample, and prevent us from seeing these details . So, we want to do this quickly. We don’t need to work as fast as some semiconductor manufacturing equipment. We scan around seven millimetres per second, which aren’t extremely high velocities. But for what we’re used to, this is quite high. The sample and the x-ray lens, called the zone plate, also needs to maintain registration on the order of 1,25 nanometres. That’s pretty tight. We do that over length scales of about 10 millimetres. This is new territory for us. Which is why we’re looking for new engineering approaches to achieve this.’

Integrated approach

After some research, they realised that mechatronics could offer an answer. ‘We first started in the synchrotron community, which isn’t that big’, explains Preissner. ‘There are a countable number of synchrotron instrumentation engineers, probably around a few hundreds, less than a few thousand for sure. The community is not that big. So when we didn’t find the answers we were looking for, we started researching other fields with similar performance specifications. This is how we ended up with semiconductor manufacturing equipment, and in turn the mechatronics approach.’

This approach, while common in some fields, is new in the synchrotron community. Mechatronics, however, might be what they need to keep pushing the technology forward. ‘In the last generation of instruments, ten to fifteen years ago it wasn’t uncommon for a mechanical engineer to sit down with a beamline scientist and just design the mechanics, connect a motion controller, maybe some interferometry, and achieve results that got the scientific job done. The only consideration to dynamics in the design was vibrations, and there was certainly no system-level approach.’, says Preissner. ‘But now the advancements in the accelerator and x-ray optics technology are really forcing us to  push the limits of what we can do. That old approach will not work.,. We need to look ahead; science does not allow us to stand still. The instrument I’m designing will need to be scientifically productive for at least the next ten years. A mechatronic approach is very interesting here. It’s great to think about things like error budgeting and dynamic models from the get-go. It’s a more integrated approach.’

Ending up in the Netherlands

Which is how Preissner and a colleague ended up in The Netherlands taking a mechatronics course at the High Tech Institute. For them it was the ideal way of being quickly plunged into the field. ‘At the APS we don’t always have the luxury to be able to do a huge amount of R&D’, says Preissner. ‘We’re in a time crunch with this project. We need to gain knowledge fast, so we can work with vendors or do our own design. If you look at for example the wafer scanners of ASML, their performance is very impressive. But an important thing to remember is that there’s roughly forty years of development behind them. When we’re designing these instruments we don’t have that time. We need to learn as fast as possible.’

Vendors

One important thing they learned in the course was a new type of language, which allowed them to better speak to their vendors. ‘We’re not just going out and buying something’, says Preissner. ‘We’re proposing things, and deciding whether a vendor can make certain designs. So knowing techniques like error budgeting is important, besides being able to look at designs with a mechatronics view. Getting some formal training accelerated our ability to talk to vendors. There’s certain key issues in this design that keep me up at night, and we need to be able to communicate that. After the course I could go to a vendor and ask them to, for example, show us their error budget. Or I could talk to them about the controller dynamics overlaid with the mechanics dynamics.’

Short timeframe

The course taught them this in a short timeframe. This is important for an engineer like Preissner, who is working on a time-sensitive project for a government-funded organisation. ‘We’re under a high amount of pressure, so we were eager to learn, and did so quite fast. We looked hard for a course that could quickly package this knowledge for us. APS is also a government institution, so we’re using tax dollars. We need to be mindful of how we spend them. We’re always looking at ways to achieve goals in an effective manner, and this course taught us what we needed to know very efficiently.’

All of this is a work in progress according to Preissner. ‘The synchrotron engineering community has been operating in a certain way for a long time. But now people realise that we need to do things differently. This course enabled us to take that different approach.’

Model in a holistic way?

So far the new mechatronics knowledge has mainly been used in contacts with vendors. But Preissner notes that going forward, they want to also use it to design new instruments from the ground up. ‘It’s on the drawing board’, he says. ‘We are wondering if we can take this new approach, and apply it in a more systematic way. Can we model the instrument, the control system model and the influences in a holistic way? What knobs do we need to turn? What control approach would make sense?’

For now, however, Preissner and his colleagues want to expand their knowledge of mechatronics. They’re already looking forward to taking more courses. ‘If you don’t use it, you lose it. So we’re feeling some pressure to apply what we learned as regularly as possible. The first part of the training was good, and now we’re thinking about taking additional courses. When you learn new engineering techniques it takes a bit of time. You have to work with it. It has already changed our vendor interactions. The next step will be changing our own designs from the ground up.’

This article is written by Tom Cassauwers, freelancer for High-Tech Systems.

To better understand his customers’ technology and applications, Ralf Noijen, systems engineer at AAE, took the Applied Optics course at the High Tech Institute. “We like to take part in the discussions at a high level,” he says.

In Helmond, AAE produces the C-Trap for Amsterdam-based LUMICKS. With this instrument, researchers can investigate, among other things, the binding of proteins to DNA strands. Understanding this molecular interaction is important to clarify the mechanisms of specific diseases.

For that research, it is necessary to manipulate the DNA strands. To do so, they are connected at the ends to small polystyrene beads. That combination is then placed in a liquid in contact with labelled specific proteins. The C-Trap allows researchers to study DNA strands with bound proteins using optical techniques.

The instrument is able to manipulate the beads with laser beams. “You can think of it as optical tweezers,” Noijen explains. “The laser beams catch small beads of polystyrene flowing through a glass channel. Between two beads is a single strand of DNA containing proteins labelled with fluorescent substances. By pulling two beads apart with optical tweezers, the stiffness of the DNA strand can be measured and thus the influence of the bound proteins. Sub-pico-Newton forces can be measured with this system.”

The instrument mainly serves to research diseases such as cancer. “The main customers of these machines are universities and research institutes,” said Noijen.

 

Ralf Noijen: “Theoretical parts of the course were balanced with a healthy dose of experimentation.”

Small microscope with flowcell

Another project AAE is building for LUMICKS is the z-Movi platform. “That is basically a small microscope with a flowcell in which tumour cells can be grown,” says Noijen. “The microscope is used to study the binding between cancer cells and immune cells. Those cancer cells are brought into contact with the drug of a specific immunotherapy in the flowcell. On top of this flowcell, a piezo element is attached. The piezo element vibrates the fluid in the channel and creates a standing acoustic wave. The immune cells are attracted to the node in the standing wave. By increasing the amplitude, the attached immune cells release at some point, which tells us something about the strength of the binding. The Cell Avidity platform measures the moment of release optically. This gives us information about the binding and thus the effectiveness of immunotherapy.”

Understanding sensitivities

The great importance of optical phenomena prompted Noijen to take the Applied Optics course at the High Tech Institute, mainly as a basis for working with customers. Noijen: “At AAE, we focus on manufacturability, testability and assembly. But we like to think along in the development process so that we can take care of all aspects. Over the years, we already built up a lot of application knowledge and we oversee more and more parts of development. That is precisely why a course like this one comes in handy. Optics is very important in the LUMICKS systems. The better we understand their sensitivities, the better we can assess whether our proposals will work.” Noijen already had experience with training courses from the High Tech Institute. “When I saw the Applied Optics course description, I thought: ‘hey that fits in nicely with the platforms we build for LUMICKS.’”

Carving out time

The course was intensive, notes Noijen, totalling 13 half-day sessions over six months. In between, he did five homework assignments. That was tough, but Noijen is nevertheless positive about the experience. “I just found it very interesting, so I didn’t have much trouble taking the time out for it,” he laughs. “You have to schedule it, of course, because life is busy.”

On the structure and content: “It started with the basics of light, what is light? From there we went to modelling and when you can use it. Which aspects are important? For example, when can you use ray tracing? I liked the build-up from basics to applications. Then lighting and sensors were also covered. The last sessions went deeper into ASML’s lithography. I found that very insightful. I worked at ASML so the subject matter was not entirely new to me, but still there were many things that I saw for the first time. Throughout the course, we learned about the latest updates in all the areas covered. We were taught by real experts.”

The theoretical parts of the course were balanced with a healthy dose of experimentation. “It goes deep into theory, but then you start experimenting. When you experience how everything really works, the theory sticks better. You learn more easily when you’ve had something in your hands. That was the uniqueness of the course.”

Discussions

For Noijen, the optics course was especially important to build a better connection with his clients. Deeper technical knowledge allows him to better engage with experts and companies. “I think we can now participate at a higher level,” he states. “That’s really nice. You learn to speak the same language about a machine. If I had done this course earlier, I would have been better able to spar with the opticians in previous projects. This also helps AAE by the way. Our primary proposition, especially for start-ups, is that we build their machines. But on top of that, you still have a competitive advantage if you can talk about the application at a high level. If you can show that you understand the sensitivities, that builds confidence.”

This article is written by Tom Cassauwers, freelancer for High-Tech Systems.

Designing tooling for an electron microscope at micron-level precision was a challenge for South-African Rosca de Waal, System Designer Mechanics at Sioux Technologies. Which is why he took the Design principles for precision engineering course at the High Tech Institute. ‘All these lightbulbs started going off in my head.’

‘I never realized how much I needed work-life balance before I came here’, Rosca de Waal exclaims when asked about the move from his native South-Africa to Eindhoven. Of course, he’s excited to work as a System Designer Mechanics at Sioux Technology. Yet what most struck him are the better working conditions.

The Stellenbosch University graduate now works on an electron microscope for Thermo Fisher. In South-Africa he built earth-observation telescopes for the company Simera Sense, yet his new project at Sioux required a higher level of precision engineering than he was used to. Which is why he joined the Design principles for precision engineering course at the High Tech Institute.

‘It’s quite a daunting and intimidating task if you need to adjust something to within micron-level precision’, he says. ‘It’s not just the small scale at which we work. It’s the environment inside the microscope that makes it so much more challenging. You’ve got very limited space inside of it, and on top of that you’re working under a high vacuum. The environment inside also needs to be very clean and the precision needs to be maintained at varying temperatures.’

Sioux is co-designing Energy Dispersive X-ray detectors for Thermo Fisher electron microscopes. Electrons hitting the sample directly and indirectly generate an image, but these electrons also generate X-ray’s. The EDX detector detects the X-rays that come off the sample, and converts them into material analysis. This offers a range of design challenges. The detector need to be aligned with the pathway of the X-rays, and it needs to be in a precise orientation with respect to the sample and the pole pieces.

‘The closer the detector is to the pole pieces, the more X-rays you will collect and the faster you will get enough data, before the electrons damage the sample’, says de Waal. ‘But there’s a risk to this, because you don’t want to touch the sample or the pole piece. That’s a very big risk. You want to be as close as possible but still leave some room for error. All of that we need to do at the micron-scale.’

Multidisciplinary

Sioux is a company that works on complex multidisciplinary systems development. The acquisition of Sioux CCM ten years ago, allowed them to build up their expertise in mechanical engineering. Today de Waal’s work builds on this multidisciplinary team.

‘For the EDX detector, I was involved with the tooling and mechanical alignment of the sensors’, he says. ‘We have our electrical team, who designed the electronics. Sioux also developed the software. This was a multidisciplinary project. We even have a Mathware department, that consists of a team of physics and mathematics PhD’s, that helped us calculate stiffness and rigidity. That was important because we, for example, couldn’t apply too much stress while inserting the sensors. We had a tolerance budget which we needed to stay within. If not, that could lead to a worst-case scenario. We used all the skills you can find within Sioux in this project.’

Learning how to deal with these challenges is why de Waal took the course Design principles for precision engineering at High Tech Institute. ‘Of course, my colleagues gave me advice. But this training really helped me open my mind. Something can be quite simple once you just grasp all the basic concepts underlying it.’

‘A whole new world opened up for me,’ Rosca de Waal

Flexures

One element that had a prominent place in the course were flexures. ‘I had come across flexures before’, says de Waal. ‘But I never needed to use them with such high precision. At my previous company, of course, we also had to design with a high degree of precision. There we used flexures to remove things like stick-slip. We used them to smoothen our adjustment, but not to limit and make the adjustment this accurate. In the electron microscope project, however, the flexures needed to fit into this intricate system, where multiple factors had to be kept in mind, such as temperature, position, adjustment accuracy and resolution.

You can actually achieve a high level of precision under those conditions with just flexures and leaf springs if you know how to use them. We often use different metals here, in combination with thermal expansion, to try and account for displacement. If you use flexures correctly, you can account for this within the requirements that you need.

This was a whole new world that opened for me. These very simple things can be designed on a small scale to fit into small places. On top of that, they will work perfectly in a vacuum environment, because they’re just metal. You don’t need special lubricated grease for ball bearings for example.’

Five lecturers and several external experts

‘The course gave me very practical knowledge on flexures’, de Waal continues. ‘Before I took it, for example, I didn’t know up to what resolution and thinness of metal they could machine these parts. But by giving us a range of practical examples, we learned this information very quickly.’

The course lasted one week, with a morning and evening session every day. Five lecturers taught the students. Besides that, external experts joined certain classes, to illustrate the theory with examples from their respective fields and industries. This meant the sessions were dotted with practical examples.

‘It helps you make connections’, de Waal says. ‘Suddenly you realize, “oh wow you can also apply this there.” One person explained how they used a simple flexure to sort electronic components in a factory, and then another person came along and explained how they used similar principles to build a fully functioning robot arm. That was quite insightful. The lecturers themselves were also well versed in their field.’

Business cards

Besides practical examples, the students also did many exercises. ‘They gave us business cards with these blocks with push pins’, says de Waal. ‘You could then play around to really get a feel of the idea. It’s something so simple, just some paper and some blocks. But with them you can better understand how, for example, leaf springs work. That really helped me to get a feel and understanding of certain concepts. It helps when you can physically feel how something works. The lecturers also 3D-printed some examples for the class. During the second half of the fifth day, we also had to design something. It’s one thing to learn the theory, but another to actually design based on the theory. During these couple of hours, we could try and apply all the knowledge we learned. The lecturers would guide you if you got stuck or would challenge your way of thinking. The entire structure of the course was well thought through.’

 

Rosca de Waal – Sioux Technologies.

De Waal’s class was mostly composed of people from the high-tech industry around Eindhoven, but international participants also joined, including students from France, Italy and even Saudi-Arabia. Many of those were from the biomedical industry.

Since taking the course in September of last year de Waal is positive about the effects it has had on him and his career. ‘Before I took it, I didn’t have a proper, deeper understanding of these principles’, he says. ‘But once I did, all these light bulbs started going off in my head. I suddenly started understanding the project I was working on a deeper level.’

This article is written by Tom Cassauwers, freelancer for High-Tech Systems.

The Design Principles for Precision Engineering training at High Tech Institute gave Koray Ulu a better understanding in mechanical design for high-tech systems. “It helped me connect the dots, so to speak. It provided insight into the critical aspects of a design.”

Seven years ago, Koray Ulu’s buddy told him about a remarkable company – an equipment builder where it was pretty normal to work with titanium. The mechanical designers of this prodigious organization could choose that metal if they felt it was necessary.

For Ulu and his colleagues at a Turkish automotive supplier, making such a decision in the design process was unthinkable. Cost was the top design priority. The expensive metal titanium was only considered as part of a standard joke. If a bottleneck showed up or the mechanics team was once again asked to do the impossible, they’d always laugh at each other and say: “No problem, let’s take titanium to fix it.”

Now suddenly, there appeared to be a company where mechanical designers could really choose the light and strong metal when needed. Cost was among the top priorities, but if functional requirements would dictate a more expensive material because it was the only way to get to specs, titanium was among the options.

Ulu got to know the particular company through his buddy, whom he had known since elementary school and with whom he was still in contact. After his doctorate in the United States, that friend had ended up at ASML, an organization that manufactured lithographic equipment for chips. Ulu learned that these machines were the most precise production systems on the planet, and the company’s headquarters was in Veldhoven, just a few thousand kilometers north of Turkey. Thus was born Ulu’s dream: he wanted to go into precision mechanics.

Ulu applied to ASML five years ago, but unfortunately, a job in Veldhoven wasn’t in the cards at that time. “I had no knowledge at all of precision mechanics in the high-tech industry,” he says. However, with his eleven years of experience in the Turkish automotive industry, he did get on board at an Eindhoven-based automotive player quite easily, and so he and his family moved from Turkey to the Netherlands.

Cards on the table

Two years ago, Ulu saw that ASML was stepping up its recruitment and he decided to make another attempt. “I really wanted to work in the high-tech industry because I believe that’s where the future lies,” he explains. “Also when it comes to fulfilling and inspiring work. Instead of focusing on purely serial production and cost, I can develop more in-depth engineering knowledge at ASML. In addition, ASML, with its position in the world, is also an intriguing company.”

For a year and a half now, Ulu has been working in Veldhoven as a mechanical designer on the heart of the ASML scanner. More precisely, on the wafer stage, a system that demands the utmost when it comes to accuracy and fine mechanics.

In his second job interview in Veldhoven, Ulu put his cards on the table. He was an experienced design engineer but admitted to having no knowledge of the high-tech industry and precision mechanics. Ulu: “They said they were aware of that. They were looking for capable engineers. They didn’t have to be precision engineers, but they had to be able to master that craft. The pool of those kinds of designers was just too small, so ASML didn’t want to limit recruitment to the high-tech market. It promised to arrange all the training needed to get me up to speed.”

World upside down

Ulu was relieved to be welcomed but gradually became more nervous. “I wanted to design at ASML but did wonder: can I do it?” His being on the mechanics team working on the wafer stage now is proof enough.

About his experience over the past two years, Ulu says: “First of all, I had to change, adjust my attitude quite a bit. In the automotive industry, manufacturability and cost are the main drivers, followed by reliability. You don’t want an assembly process that requires highly skilled people. Anyone should be able to make what you design.”

High tech turns the world upside down for a mechanical designer coming from automotive. “Using titanium is pretty standard because of stiffness and weight requirements. Same story for special engineering plastics. In automotive, those are pretty much out of the question. Within ASML, cost is important, but if it’s functionally necessary, you can use any material.”

Lightning speed

Asked about the top priorities for mechanical designers at ASML, Ulu replies: “The functional requirements have the highest priority. These depend heavily on the modules and components. If it comes to the choice of materials, issues such as magnetic properties, resistance to UV light and vacuum compatibility are important. In essence, it’s all about functional requirements. That’s the differentiating factor.” As a designer, if you have to focus on these requirements, you’re diving deeper into physics and engineering principles, Ulu says. “That’s the big difference. It expands your choices.”

It makes the work both challenging and attractive. “It’s not limited to the choices you have. Conceptual designs don’t change quickly. Not in automotive and not in lithography. But technology does develop at lightning speed. Market requirements change so quickly that sometimes we really have to develop whole new things to meet them. If changes are needed as a result, it can have far-reaching consequences for the entire design. Everything is interconnected.”

Business cards

To get up to speed in constructing for high tech, Ulu attended the weeklong training course Design principles for precision engineering at High Tech Institute.

He’s especially complimentary about the team of roughly eight instructors. In general, technical trainers always know what they’re talking about, Ulu notes, but he says few trainers have the skill to convey deep understanding. “In this case, it wasn’t just about imparting knowledge and refreshing the relevant information from my mechanical background. I learned in the construction principles training how to connect that knowledge to better see the relationships. With that, I understood how things really work. Now that I’ve gotten hold of that, I can use those principles everywhere. It’s called construction principles or precision engineering for a reason. Knowledge alone isn’t enough; it’s about understanding the principles.”

Ulu says the training helped him apply his existing knowledge from a precision mechanical perspective. “In the course, the trainers gave assignments with simple tools to make clear the fine-mechanical principles of structures with flexible and rigid parts. For example, we connected wood blocks to business cards and felt with our hands what was going on. This made it immediately clear what degrees of freedom the system had and how, in such a simple system, we could constrain some degrees of freedom and set others free. The beauty of it: the simpler the system, the better you learn to understand the basic principles.”

Connecting the dots

Ulu did have lessons about leaf springs as an undergraduate in mechanical engineering. “But I never felt the ‘aha experience,’ the moment of gaining insight so strongly. After the training, I knew: when I look at a design now, I impulsively feel how that system will respond to specific forces in practice.”

So how does that work? Is there a gut feeling when constructing or evaluating specific structures? Ulu says he can only speak for himself in that regard. “It’s first and foremost about knowledge. That’s the foundation. After that, it’s about connecting that knowledge. You connect the dots, so to speak. That provides an understanding of and insight into the critical aspects of a design. If you can’t connect the knowledge dots, then it doesn’t produce understanding. If I understand it, if I know the background, then somehow the gut feeling comes naturally.”

The knowledge Ulu gained in the training isn’t only relevant in his own designs, he says. “For example, it also helped me in team design reviews, where we discuss designs together. In a recent meeting, for example, I was able to convince my colleagues that a component needed a specific radius to prevent fatigue of the overall system. That wasn’t on the drawing, but it was added.”

Ulu found that he could apply the knowledge and insights gained anywhere in the design process. “At ASML, there’s a lot of history in the designs. Sometimes you have to adjust a design based on new requirements. Some features in a design are there for good reasons, but in my first year, that wasn’t always recognizable to me. When I adjusted a design, one of the architects sometimes might correct me later. Thanks to the training, I now have a much better understanding and see through the subtleties in a design much better.”

This article is written by René Raaijmakers, tech editor of High-Tech Systems.