Participating Teams

Team IGNITE is a student light design studio with students from the Eindhoven University of Technology, Fontys, Avans, Design Academy Eindhoven and Tilburg University. In our student light design studio, we combine our knowledge on light, design and tech to design and manufacture light artworks with innovative technologies. We use light in our designs, as light significantly affects people’s emotions and to create atmosphere. Light is a multi-faceted design tool which is very effective in experience design. With our artworks, we want to create a safe environment where people can easily connect with each other to create the feeling of social connectedness in society. All projects designed and manufactured by us are in accordance with Team IGNITE identity: • Interactivity: facilitating social interaction between people in a playful way, with the purpose of creating social connectivity. • Impact: start with thinking about the product’s lifecycle at the start of the design phase to minimalize it’s environmental impact. We aim to create light artworks with numerous applications. • Innovation: making use of creative ways to incorporate technology with the purpose of solving social challenges that are relevant to our current and future society.

Our team is trying to solve the problem of executing research on Antarctica. Antarctica is the 5th biggest continent on Earth and conceals many unrevealed mysteries that would illuminate researchers about Earth's past and future. Currently, researchers do their best to understand climate change and the ice melting phenomenon. Although they have one major challenge, which is technology. Currently, the main mean of travel is by using old sherp-type vehicles which are kerosene driven and human controlled. This limits greatly the research possibilities as researchers need to go with multiple trailers full of provisions to reach a further point in the continent. That is the reason why only 25% of the continent is explored.

Team Daedalus aims to empower humanitarian institutions through a platform for sustained aerial surveillance. By developing a semi-autonomous solar-powered drone, the team is creating a useful tool for wildfire detection and monitoring. Students are currently focusing on creating prototypes iteratively, with the goal of reaching 24h of continuous flight within the following few years.

Global warming is an ever-increasing problem. To properly fight this, an energy transition is required. This energy transition is already taking place, with more and more solar and wind power being generated. However, there are many untapped sources of electric energy, such as small motions in everyday life.

Humanity has travelled to space using electronic chips powering mechanical components. With the constant burst of radiation from the sun and the rest of the universe, data can get corrupted. To combat this problem in space, a lot of defensive measures are taken to keep the gathered data safe. These methods are extremely costly. Next to this, sending equipment to space remains a tricky process. How can we quantify exact issues better? How can we safely transmit/receive data in a different way?

The energy transition is not happening fast enough.

Nurdle Soup strives to fill the unmet, pressing need for environmental sensing to localize and remove plastic spills of all sizes in ecologically vulnerable areas. Our focus is on prioritizing the protection of sensitive ecosystems, while also raising awareness on the global microplastics crisis, especially amongst the plastics industry, policy makers and cleaning initiatives. The magnitude of the impact of plastic pollution on the environment continues to grow, making this mission critical.

Energy production by means of sustainable energy sources is inherently intermittent and fluctuating. This results in an offset in energy demand and energy production. This offset causes the electricity grid to be overloaded so much that these sustainable energy sources are temporarily disconnected, wasting the green energy. The congestion problem restricts energy sources from being connected to the grid. This problem is especially prevalent in the agricultural sectors. Farmers with large stables cannot put solar panels on their roofs, prohibiting them from generating additional income, and severely limiting the sustainable energy generation in the Netherlands, and internationally.