T-Licht 23.3

T-Licht Association magazine of T.S.V. ‘Jan Pieter Minckelers’

Study trip to Copenhagen Front image: Study trip to Copenhagen

APRIL 2019 VOLUME 23 EDITION 03

Interview with:

Kim Pauwels

Good day readers, This edition there are two new faces in town. Maybe you’re already familiar with us, since we have been to multiple Japie activities and are regular customers at the F.O.R.T. Nevertheless, we would like to introduce ourselves.

We are Douwe and Vilena, two second year students from the same friend group, living only one street apart. Most of the time we spend together, because of our courses and passion for alcohol. On a regular basis we try to mommy our friends up and forth to Stratum. If we don’t see each other, Vilena is in Bulgaria or Douwe at Pusphaira.

26 The Hollywood revolution Carte blanche: Find out what happened at the Oscars in this article.

After our first committees, we wanted to join a second committee. Luckily, T-Licht is always looking for new members and since we both like to write every now and then, our decisions were made. During our time we’d like to improve our English vocabulary to communicate easier with the people we care about.

If you want a more elaborate introduction, join a Japie activity or a F.O.R.T. drink. Of course, you can also get an autograph.

Douwe and Vilena

07 The sunny side of life Culture shock: There are multiple Japie members that go abroad for some time. To give you an insight in what they go through, they tell all about it in the culture shock. This edition Camiel Steffanie tells all about his journey in Australia.

T-Licht April 2019 04

By the Chairman: True love

22

05 Education: Evaluation is the key to success

Thomas on research: Membership, a full-time job

24 LadyCie: The very first LadyCie

06 Puzzle: Calculations 07

Culture shock: The sunny side of life

26

Carte blanche: The hollywood revolution

08

Beer of the quartile: Beer fashion and hazy tendencies

28

Interview with: Kim Pauwels

30

Chemistry in real life: Spring

10 Benefactor: Als procestechnoloog ben je

32 VSI/e: VSI/e theme event “Health innovation”

breder inzetbaar dan je denkt

33

Carte blanche: Pro tips for being the

12

Science news: DNA origami games

foreigner in the room

14

Letting off some steam: The butt of a joke

34 Internship: Internship at Chemelot

15

Carte blanche: Why I love talking to strangers

36

Het Y van de Huismeester: Druk door drugs

16

PhD article: High-resolution patternable photonic coatings

37

Carte Blanche: Plant 101

keeping your herbs alive

38

Carte blanche: Going back to High school

18 ChefCie: An evening with the Chef Committee 19

Study trip: Study trip to Copenhagen

Beer of the quartile: beer fashion

16 Colophon Volume 23, edition 3, Circulation: 600 Editor in chief: Raoul Hendrix.

Editorial board: Bart van den Bersselaar, Mariska Brüls, Alex van de Greef, Limi Kalapurackal, Douwe Orij, Vilena Petrova, Woutje ter Weel, Thomas Werkhorst, Marc Willemsen.

Printer: Gildeprint Drukkerijen info@gildeprint.nl

The T-Licht is the association magazine of T.S.V. ‘Jan Pieter Minckelers’, study association of the department of Chemical Engineering and Chemistry of the Eindhoven University of Technology.

Contact: T.S.V. ‘Jan Pieter Minckelers’ Attn. Het T-Licht Helix STW 0.25 Postbus 513, 5600 MB Eindhoven Tel: 040-2473756

tlicht.st@tue.nl | www.tsvjapie.nl The editorial board always reserves the right to edit or decline the provided copy.

Index of advertisements: Pg 11: Shell Pg 25: ASML Back cover: Dow

True love By the chairman

In true love, it is very often said that the inside is much more important than the outside. As the chairman of this association, I obviously love Japie a lot and the inside and purpose is therefore very important to me. However, with my experience so far in the board, I feel like it is the outside of Japie that is much more often discussed.

To me, this sometimes seems like a waste of time. We discuss the amount of times we should go “lubbing” in the Pantry, the amount of pixels in a poster, when and where the board should wear their Japie-outfits and the exact title of an activity. Of course, I agree that these are all important topics. Together they give our association the right look and the professional feeling. As a board, we discuss this very often and we are very proud of the outside of our association. I feel like it is a must to keep a close eye on promotion, so I think it is right that we take a critical look at this, but in my opinion there is sometimes a bit too much focus on the outside of Japie. Mostly, I think it distracts us from other important topics to discuss.

In my opinion, the association could also start a discussion about the types of activities we organize, the way they are organized and our vision behind this. As the 61st board we for example started to do Cohort Activities in order to involve even more people within Japie and give them a very low threshold to subscribe. These activities are discussed a lot, but not whether

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it is a good idea or the right thing to pursue with the association, but rather if the costs will all be the same and what the amount of participants should be. To me, this feels much less important than the discussion about the idea and vision that comes with these activities. Is it the right thing to strive for a low subscribing threshold for participant? Or should we keep Japie more exclusive? Topics like that.

The same holds for other activities and things we organize. We try to give the Japie GO-Team a new boost this year, but the only thing everyone is talking about is whether the coach should wear a suit or not. With this time and energy, we could be discussing if the GO-Team should be a tradition and what our opinion is on promoting the use of a lot of beer.

“Focus a bit more on the inside and less on the outside”

Maybe we should spend just a little less time on discussing the exact word we use, the specific clothing we wear or the moment you pin a poster to the wall. We might use this time to discuss what appearance we want to have with Japie, the things we really stand for and how we can organize activities that really suit our members. In that way we can, with all our true love for this association, focus a bit more on the inside and less on the outside. With still half a year to go as chairman, I think this would be a beautiful thing to strive for.

WRITTEN BY:

Rosa Geveling Rosa Geveling was thinking about how she can improve the association a little extra in the next half year, based on a true love principle.

Evaluation

is the key to success Education

We are already at the third T-Licht of the year. I guess time flies when you’re having fun. Of course, for this third edition I was once again asked to tell all of you something more about education. Some of you may know this already, but something big is coming up within the borders of education island: a grand evaluation! Before I tell you more about the particular evaluation I am writing about, I will tell you something more about evaluation of education in general, so please bear with me.

There are multiple ways in which our education is evaluated. Let’s start with the basic courses within the Bachelor College. As you know there are five basic courses within it. After these courses, you probably have (or have not…) filled in a course survey. Also during the quartile, feedback on these courses is being collected, e.g. by me during cohort consultations. The feedback gained from this is discussed with the Dean Bachelor College and responsible lecturer(s) with the goal of formulating improvements for next year.

Of course, within our own department evaluation is done as well. Here, the course surveys are discussed with the responsible lecturers, together with me, the program director and some students that followed the course.

These students are chosen by me so if

you are interested to discuss a course evaluation together with responsible lecturers, you are free to let me know!

Now, to get to the point to really get excited about. A complete evaluation of the Bachelor College is coming up. The Bachelor College has now completed two cycles and the TU/e thought that this is the perfect moment to take a closer look at it.

This year a lot of data is going to be analyzed on the Bachelor College.

All aspects of the Bachelor College will be scrutinized. Should USE be in a different form? Are basic courses taking up too much space within the bachelor? Do students have sufficient freedom to follow the courses that they want? These are the kind of questions that will be asked during the evaluation. Following up on the

“A complete evaluation of the Bachelor College is coming up” evaluation, in 2020 a new proposal for the framework of the Bachelor College will be drafted.

Of course, we have to wait for the outcome of the evaluation but nevertheless I am very curious about the changes that will possibly be made to the Bachelor College. Are you as well?

WRITTEN BY:

Rick Arts Rick wanted to tell the readers of the T-Licht about the evaluation coming up for the Bachelor College.

05

Calculations Two smaller puzzles Puzzle

One of the most essential skills for a chemical engineer is of course being able to solve some difficult equations. To test these skills, we have prepared more than just one puzzle this time! The T-Licht puzzle consists of two puzzles this time, please submit your calculation together with your answer to the email adress mentioned in the blue box below.

A Japie member has brewed 232 of his own beers and wants to transport it to the F.O.R.T. (which is 5 km away). He will go by foot but he will drink one of his beers every 150m. He can carry up to 60 beers simultaneously, but he is allowed to temporarily drop them on his route in order to pick them up later. What is the maximum number of beers he can deliver to the F.O.R.T.?

The ‘borrelnootjes’ (snacks) in the F.O.R.T. can be white, orange and red. The inventory consists of an infinite number of borrelnootjes and the fractions of the borrelnootjes are equal. Huub want to make sure everyone has one orange borrelnootje since they taste the best in combination with the Brand beer. When he shakes the borrelnootjes into their container, he keeps shaking until an orange borrelnootje is included. When an orange borrelnootje is included, he is satisfied and continues with other orders. What will be the ratios of the colors of the borrelnootjes in the sold containers?

Last edition the winners, Indy Hoeks, Marieke Verberne and Melissa Hanegraaf, received a knives set.

This time, the winner will receive an Eagle Creek Cargo Hauler travelling bag (120L), courtesy of ExxonMobil.

In order to win this prize, you need to mail a scan of the finished puzzle to tlicht.st@tue.nl before the 20th of May. Disclaimer: only regular members are eligible for the prize.

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The sunny side of life Culture shock

In about 24 hours I went from 10°C to 30°C, autumn to spring, a moderate sea climate to subtropical, a city of roughly 200,000 people to 2,000,000 and from a university with about 10,000 students to 50,000! Most interestingly, after my internship in process improvement and my master thesis in catalysis, I went to a biomedical research group in the Sunshine State of Australia!

G’day mate! In case you don’t know me yet, my name is Camiel Steffanie and I have been around the Helix for a while. Currently, I’m doing an international research project at the Australian Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology in Brisbane, in the group of Prof. Alan Rowan. His Nature-published research focuses on understanding and controlling

cellular fate by tuning the cell extracellular matrix interaction in a novel hydrogel material. My project is about synthesizing dye-labelled polymers, which can be studied on the rheometer while simultaneously imaging the material structure (and deformation) using a super-resolution microscope. My materials can be further used by colleague biologists to grow cells and by physicists for further analysis.

Although I work in a very international and interdisciplinary group, the biggest culture shock was getting into biomedical research.

However, new things really open up your mind. It is amazing to live, work and travel in such a beautiful country!

Life and communication here are comparable to the Netherlands, as it is a very modern and western country.

However, I would like to share a few remarkable differences.

The sun rises around 5 AM and sets before 7 PM, so people here (including myself for a change) like to get up early and go out for breakfast and good coffee. The English influence is clearly visible in the supermarkets, while proximity

to Asia results in good food on the streets! Unfortunately, my morning routine (yoghurt) and evening ritual (enjoying a beer) are extremely expensive here. But this only gets me creative in the kitchen and my free time.

To conclude, nobody in Brisbane is in a hurry and everyone tells you ‘no worries!’. Imagine such beautiful weather in the Netherlands all year…

I think we would stress less and enjoy food and life more than we do now.

Since that is never gonna happen, I can only recommend you all to get out for your own international experience!

WRITTEN BY:

Camiel Steffanie While finishing the last 15 ECTS of his master studies in Brisbane, Camiel shares his experiences Down Under.

07

Beer fashion and hazy tendencies Beer of the quartile

Times are changing, and so is the T-Licht. In a time where traditional articles are no longer certain of their spot, luckily the Beer of the quartile is still there! However, change is not always a bad thing, and certainly not regarding beer. Times have definitely changed for your most beloved type of drink, and so the stock managers once again set out to find the latest fashionables.

As with clothes, beer brewing has new trends every year. Every brewer tries to be original and wants to come up with something new every time.

And because all breweries are looking at what the others make and what sells the best, there are new trends to be found every year. A few editions ago I wrote about barrel-aging, one of those things you first never saw, but all of a sudden was everywhere. A few years ago, the same went for IPA’s. No one knew them, and a few months later they were omnipresent.

Of course, you now want to know which beer style will be fashionable

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for the upcoming spring and summer.

But do you really? Because – and I kid you not – the latest craze in craft beer world is the alcohol free beer. That is disappointing, isn’t it? At least it is a beer type with a lot of room for improvement. The current attention for alcohol free beer will definitely help to make it more delicious and more appealing to a wider range of people.

However, we are still students. Most of us don’t have to bother driving a car home after the Thursday drink, nor does it matter a lot if we don’t feel perfectly fresh on Friday morning. So

lucky for you, there is another trend in beer that will make all of us a lot happier: hazy IPA’s! Some of you may have heard of them over the past few months, and that is not a weird thing. These cloudy hop-bombs are shooting out of the ground like mushrooms everywhere.

This new hazy style – often referred to as New England IPA – has caused quite the stir in the beer world over the last year-and-a-bit. Because of that, it has only been acknowledged as an official style by The Brewers Association for a year. It was only in March 2018 that the association

added “Juicy or Hazy (India) Pale Ale” to their brewing guidelines.

Let me tell you a little bit about the brief history this IPA substyle has known. As its popular name New England IPA already tells you, the style originates in the North-West of the USA, Vermont more specifically.

This is where The Alchemist has been brewing their hazy Heady Topper for quite a while. It is an exceptionally high rated beer (4.6/5 on Untappd, which is really, really high), so obviously other brewers in the area tried to copy some of its fame. However, the west of the United States is most famous for their WestCoast style IPA. A crystal clear beer style, which became hugely popular several years ago. The hazy character was not immediately accepted by all brewers, and definitely not with The Brewers Association. Haziness in a beer is namely not always a good thing. It can also be a sign of a mistake in the brewing process.

How to distinguish between a brewing mistake and a nice New England IPA then? Well, that is tough, mostly because it is not exactly clear what causes the haze in the beers. It is some sort of flocculation of either the hops that are added really late in the dryhopping, or it is part of the yeast, but

most likely a combination of both.

Anyway, the style kept on growing and growing, and is ubiquitous nowadays. It is so popular that the Brewers Association basically could not keep refusing it as a style, and had to acknowledge it.

But that is enough of this modern history lesson. Let’s talk taste. When you think of IPA, one thing that probably comes to mind immediately is bitterness. Well, that may be the case for traditional IPA’s such as the English or West Coast styles, but certainly not for our hazy friends.

This category is mostly characterized by fruitiness, tropical and floral notes.

Mostly aroma hops are used in the beer, as opposed to the bittering hops that IPA’s usually take. The intense dry-hopping brings these flavors forward even more. The beer style has a very pleasant juicy character, which makes it refreshing to drink.

Don’t be surprised by an eventual prickling sensation on your tongue either. These beers are so packed with hop that they can give some people a light hop-burn.

The New England style has one more characteristic. You need to drink them as fresh as possible. The flocculation in the beer causes the fruitiness to disappear quite fast. As any beer, it does not really go bad, but the taste of this style changes quite quickly over time. That’s why I would like to urge you to head to the F.O.R.T. directly after reading this article, because there will be one of those nice and juicy beers waiting for you!

Even though the Coconut IPA by North Brewing Co. and Amundsen Bryggeri is not called New England on the label, this fruit cracker definitely comes with all of the haze.

Besides the haze, the beer appears very light in color, and has a very thin head of foam. It starts off with a very

nice hop aroma, with a refreshing kick reminding of pineapple. It then softens down quite a bit due to the coconut that was added to it (fun fact: the brewers toasted the coconut in a paella pan). The taste of the coconut does not completely come forward, but it is surely noticeable in the kind character of the beer. Another good thing is that it comes in cans of 0.44 liter, so there is a lot of it to enjoy!

I now realize that I’m almost reaching the maximum amount of characters for this Beer of the quartile, and that I have not even introduced the breweries yet. Which is a slight problem, because this beer has two brewers. North Brewing comes from Leeds and was born in 2015 from the ‘oldest craft beer bar in the UK’, the North Bar, opened in 1997.

Amundsen is currently the largest brewery in Oslo, after growing consistently from their brewpub start in 2011. Both breweries strive to deliver good quality, innovative beers.

And, as the Coconut IPA proves, they are also absolutely not scared to try out the latest fashions and trends in the craft beer world.

WRITTEN BY:

Dennis Thuy The stock managers tried to be fashionable this time, and want to present you with one of the newest beer styles around.

09

Als procestechnoloog ben je breder inzetbaar dan je denkt Benefactor

Dames en heren, geachte lezers, het is mij een grote eer en een waar genoeg u aan te mogen kondigen: mezelf. Inmiddels is het zo’n 6,5 jaar geleden dat ik vertrokken ben uit Eindhoven en inmiddels ben neergestreken in Rotterdam. Gelukkig mag ik nog af en toe afreizen naar het mooie Eindhoven, voor de jaarlijkse actitviteit met Shell bij Japie, als preasidium bij de cantus of als pedel op de constitutieborrel.

Mijn naam is Rick Maas, 7 jaar rondgelopen op de campus in Eindhoven en werkzaam bij Shell in Moerdijk. Ik ben daar begonnen als procestechnoloog en inmiddels ben ik 1,5 jaar in de functie van assistent plant manager van de styreen en propeenoxide fabrieken. Dus in mijn geval geen exotische uitstapjes naar allerlei vakgebieden, gewoon diehard aan de slag in de petrochemische industrie.

grote explosie geweest en bij een later incident was er zoveel schade aan de stoomketels dat de hele site voor een lange tijd stil heeft gelegen. Dit zijn events die er behoorlijk inhakken en je doen beseffen dat je als chemisch ingenieur van grote invloed kan zijn op de veiligheid hoe de samenleving tegen de petrochemie aan kijkt. Door met slimme oplossingen te komen en operators te helpen, kunnen grote problemen voorkomen worden.

Is de petrochemie een aflopende zaak?

De energietransitie is vaak in het nieuws, hoe gaan we onze fabrieken duurzamer maken? Mensen die in de buurt van fabrieken wonen beseffen zich vaak niet dat we bijv. door lichtere materialen en betere isolatie op basis van plastics onze huizen en auto’s zuiniger krijgen. Daarnaast krijgen we steeds vaker vragen van onze buren of wij onze zaakjes op het gebied van veilighewwid wel op orde hebben, hoe gaan we daar mee om?

De petrochemische industrie blijft een zeer interessante werkplek de komende decennia. Kunnen we een stoomkraker opereren op elektriciteit?

Kunnen we plastics ontwikkelen die uit natuurlijke grondstoffen zijn opgebouwd en niet uit olie? Kunnen we onze fabrieken opereren zonder grote lekkages, branden en andere incidenten of raken we onze license to operate kwijt?

De 6,5 jaar bij Shell tot nu toe zijn voor mij zeer de moeite waard en leerzaam geweest. Hoge pieken zijn afgewisseld met diepe dalen.

In 2018 maakten we meer product dan ooit, zonder grote incidenten en met minder persoonlijke ongevallen dan ooit. In 2014 is in Moerdijk een

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We kunnen als chemisch technologen een belangrijke bijdrage leveren aan het veilig produceren van producten die nodig zijn om een wereld een klein beetje beter te maken en daar in steeds verder te beteren. Hier ligt dan ook een grote uitdaging voor jullie dus ik raad jullie allemaal aan je studieachtergrond niet te snel achter je te laten J.

GESCHREVEN DOOR:

Rick Maas Rick was de voorzitter van het 51ste bestuur der T.S.V. ‘Jan Pieter Minckelers’.

PERNIS

JACQUELINE VONCKEN

Eindhoven University of Technology, Mechanical Engineering

PROCESS CONTROL TECHNOLOGIST (PACO)

Constantly seeking improvements My primary role is to make sure that the process operating systems of several units throughout the Pernis refinery are working optimally. I’m always seeking improvements: my goal is to ensure we’re always operating in a way that’s both efficient and safe. In the pursuit of optimization, we want the plants to be automated as much as possible. For critical processes we can completely automate by means of model predictive control. Where once an operator would have had to respond to different situations, we can now use models to predict the effects over time and anticipate and react accordingly. Finding new ways to increase efficiency will never stop, and I’m always looking to boost productivity.

There’s so much to do, and there’s never a day I feel bored.

You can choose your own path It doesn’t matter what role you do at Shell, there’s always room to develop. You can end up heading in any number of directions, even with a background in mechanical engineering. It really all depends on what you focus on and how you choose to expand your knowledge. Shell gives you the chance to mature, both in a personal and vocational capacity; there are, for example, countless training courses and social activities to take part in.

What I’m doing is making a difference Shell sites have a very dynamic environment, and that makes my job very diverse. No two days are the same; there are short- and long-term projects that I work on, but there’re also troubleshooting tasks that need to be dealt with immediately. I’m constantly dealing with new scenarios, and that means working with people from various departments. I often have to communicate on a number of different levels in any one day. I love being able to see the results of my work in practice; to know that what I’m doing is making a difference is a great feeling.

Discover your career opportunities: www.shell.nl/engineering/en

“To know that what I’m doing is making a difference is a great feeling.”

DNA origami games Science news

Besides the whole Russian Roulette your genes play for your different characteristics, DNA is now also used for a game of tic-tac-toe. Scientists at Caltech were already able to create the smallest Mona Lisa ever made, but in a single year their DNA Origami structures have become dynamic. This makes it possible to play for instance the old-fashioned game.

To build the still image of the Mona Lisa, DNA Origami was used. This is a robust way to create a certain pattern. For this technique, tiles are created that all have a specific spot in the ‘painting’. Since the name origami means the folding of paper into an arbitrary form, the tiles consist of multiple DNA strands folded into complex square nanostructures.

Each DNA strand consists of around 200-300 nucleotides, giving each tile specific properties. Using this method, the tiles are limited to binding or unbinding. When all edges are bound and the puzzle is complete, the information on the tiles will show a certain pattern.

For dynamic tiles, a technique called DNA strand displacement is also used.

It comes down to the fact that the four different bases A, C, T & G wish to pair with their complementary base.

Consequently, a strand pairs with a complementary strand that has the most matches. To utilize this in the dynamic DNA Origami, a new tile will be introduced to an already taken spot. The flexibility of the four edges of a square tile allows a new tile to bind to the unbound part, a toehold,

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starting a competition. If this new tile has more attracting interactions, then it will take over the old tile’s spot.

Survival of the Fittest so to say.

When the researchers played a game of tic-tac-toe, 3 by 3 array boards of 264 by 264 nanometer were made. Both players had nine unique DNA origami tiles, one for each position with a corresponding marker. There were twelve toeholds for the tiles to start binding, one at each inside border. Since the same toeholds were present in the player tiles, the nature of the neighboring tiles didn’t matter. Every 24 hours one move could be made, giving the tile time to settle in.

In total it took seven days before there was a winner.

The yield of the different types of tiles was 78.0%, 52.8% and 100% for the corner, edge and center tile.

Corresponding to the yield, the reaction rate for the center tile was the highest, followed by the corner tile and edge tile, which was the slowest. This is caused by number of interior corners of a tile. When displacing an edge or corner tile, the integration of the new tile goes from to the toehold to a corner, turns 90 degrees and continues. This is rate determining and an edge tile has two of them compared to the one of a corner tile. This is not needed for the center tile, because of the way the binding place was designed with four toeholds instead of one. As the

game progressed, the yield decreased to 8.3% at the end. This is due to the fact that number of possible distinct arrays increases per move. When there are a lot of different arrays in the sample, analyzing becomes harder which was done on fluorescence.

All nice and cozy to play tic-tac-toe on a nanoscale, but there are more possibilities after this discovery.

Experiments were done with different types of displacement, that can each have their advantages.

Competitive, sequential and cooperative displacement were all studied by using tiles consisting of a 2 by 2 array. For the competitive reconfiguration, one invader tile was mixed with two cover tiles with different reaction rates. When the invader concentration was below a value of 2 nM, the faster reaction was the dominant one. In a sample of 90 tile complexes and a concentration of 1.2 nM, the yield for the two reactions were 57.0% against 8.7%.

An experiment with a concentration of 6 nM, which is above the threshold value, resulted in yields of respectively 100% and 97.7%. This makes it possible to control the saturation of a specific tile.

The second integration, sequential, is done by using two half tiles. The experiments showed that the order of adding the tiles mattered, but the time in between did not. Since the toehold can only be used by the first invader, the second invader alone does not have much effect. That time does not play a big role, means that the intermediate product is stable enough to survive. Lastly, cooperative reconfiguration was studied. Here timing is important, because both half tiles are needed for a replacement. If the second half tile is not available, the reaction will undo itself.

Luckily, these mechanics can also become useful. Especially nanomachines can profit from the results of these experiments. In the future these machines will not have to be built from scratch. Instead, partially broken or out-of-date nanomachines can be fixed by the dynamic DNA Origami structures.

But until then, only a rather long relaxing game of tic-tac-toe can be played.

WRITTEN BY:

Douwe Orij Douwe wrote this article to inform the readers about the latest trends on a nanoscale.

[1] Rukkumani Rajagopolan, Jatinder V. (2017),

Nanotehcnological

toward

cancer

approaches chemotherapy,

Nanostructures for Cancer Therapy, https://

“For the game of tic-tac-toe, 3 by 3 array boards of 264 by 264 nanometer were made.�

www.sciencedirect.com/topics/neuroscience/ dna-origami [2] California Institute of Technology (20-12-2018),

World’s

smallest

tic-

tac-toe game board made with DNA, ScienceDaily, https://www.sciencedaily.com/ releases/2018/12/181220130209.htm [3] Qian

Petersen L.

P.,

(2018),

Tikhomirov

T.,

Information-based

autonomous reconfiguration in systems of interacting DNA nanostructures, Nature Communications, DOI: 10.1038/s41467018-07805-7

13

The butt of a joke Letting off some steam

“Why did the chicken cross the road?” This is probably the most common joke in the world. For many people it might even be the first joke they ever told. There are even many variations and callbacks on the joke, yet everyone knows that the answer is: “To get to the other side.” It’s a rather lame joke and ironically a prime example of an antijoke. Recently I came across another interpretation of this joke, in that the “other side” refers to the afterlife. It adds a dark morbid twist to this joke, and another layer in the form of a pun on the term “crossing over”.

Now, I do hope that there are no chickens reading this T-Licht, and if they do, I hope they are not offended by the joke in the introduction. I write this because it seems as if people are taking offense more easily. Almost every week there is a news item about how people or groups of people take offense on an action, an expression or a joke. At times, I agree that the joke was taken too far and is offensive, other times I wonder what the fuss is about.

Author E.B. White said: “Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but the thing dies in the process and the innards are discouraging to any but the pure scientific mind.” So, let’s grab our scalpel and start cutting. There are many theories about the how and why about humor, ranging from

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stress relief to a superiority complex to a sexual selection trait.

Often humor is used to push boundaries, making subjects more open to discussion. It can call for criticism and turn into selfreflection. In the Netherlands we have the New Year’s Eve tradition of the Oudejaarsconference, in which a Dutch comedian looks back on the events of the year. Carnaval is also often used to make humorous remarks on events, persons or society.

It puts everything in perspective and often you wonder why everyone was so worked up about stuff.

That being said, I do firmly believe that humor should never be used to hurt or negatively affect people.

Of course this creates a thin line

that must be carefully balanced.

If you cross this border, you’re negatively impacting something and all benefits are cancelled out. If you’re too far inside the border, the shock or unexpectedness goes away.

And let’s be honest, everyone has laughed about jokes that could be offensive, jokes about people from the neighboring country for example.

I mean, if you can’t joke about it, what else can you do? A play on words?

That just wouldn’t be very punny.

WRITTEN BY:

Marc Willemsen Marc would like for people to relax and laugh a little.

Why I love talking to strangers Carte blanche

As kids, most of us have been told by our parents or other elderly people how we should absolutely never talk to strangers. “Do not accept anything a stranger offers to you! Do not talk to people who you do not know...” Of course the extremes to which this is taken also varies between cultures. I was also told this as a kid but, weirdly enough, as I grew up I developed a strong interest in talking to strangers. Be it the guy who is sitting opposite to me on the train or the Uber driver- there is always a burning desire inside me to know more about them. Now you may ask why it is that I care so much about the lives of others. To put it simply, I love it how unique and extraordinary each one of us is. Eeerrmm... sure Limi but can you elaborate please? Sure!

Personality tests are something that I find super interesting. A few questions and the computer can give me a score on what my personality is like with respect to the big 5 personality traits. Although there may be others who have really similar results and apparently are the same personality type as I am, there are obviously differences. Each one of us has certain strengths and weaknesses in us and it is the balance of these that makes us who we are (or a part of who we are).

For me this balance is something very fascinating and hence I want to hear and learn more about them and the more I talk to people, the higher the number of “mixtures” I hear of. With such a wide variety of personalities, it is difficult for me to imagine how one can stop oneself from trying to explore the mixture/balance within a stranger we meet.

Now our personalities are not just a clear cut of our strengths and weaknesses combined but are also molded over time through the experiences we go through every day. I do not want to dwell into the

nature vs nurture debate, but let’s just say we are a combination of both nature and nurture. Having talked about the nature part already, the nurture part is something that I find even more exciting. The experiences a person has had, the lessons he/she learned through them, the mistakes or achievements in life, all of these combined with our genetics is simply said what I see one to be formed of.

Just like I have been through different phases of my life, you have too and although there may be quite some similarities (like how most of us attended a high school) there are quite some differences and peculiarities within the similarities that make my story a little different from yours.

Now this catches my interest and I want to hear more!

One day as I went to church I met a doctor from India, who at first although I smiled at her, seemed to give me an arrogant look. I still took a seat next to her and 2 seconds later we started having a chat, which surprisingly she initiated by asking me where I am from. Further, we talked a

bit about each other’s lives- she more than me and I must say my initial impression of her being arrogant was changed completely after that short conversation. Having lost her last family member, her husband, and having retired she had now settled in this new town to be a bit further away from the rush of city life. Something in our short conversation told me she had many more stories and I was curious of course...

Going back to where I started, despite the negativity/weirdness that surrounds talking to strangers, I can’t hold myself back from starting a chat with my companion next seat on a train ride cause who knows what interesting “mixture” his life consists of.

WRITTEN BY:

Limi Kalapurackal Limi wanted to talk about why it can be great fun to talk to strangers.

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High-resolution patternable photonic coatings From molecule to device PhD article

At SFD (Stimuli-responsive Functional Materials and Devices), we aim to develop new polymers that we can integrate in devices that can be used in for instance sustainable energy applications, healthcare or for personal comfort. We approach this goal by starting at the very beginning: we first design and synthesise the molecules to develop functional materials that we can use in devices. In my project, I’m currently looking at coatings that can reflect certain wavelengths of light.

To understand how this works, you first need to know more about the type of molecules that we like to use most: liquid crystals (LCs). I guess most people have heard of them, as they are used in almost every TV, laptop or mobile screen you can think of.

However, LCD screens are only one of the many purposes of LCs. One of the, very many, other applications where we can use LCs is in the fabrication of photonic materials. These materials traditionally consist of alternating layers of inorganic materials that have a difference in refractive index. As a

result, when light passes this material, a part of it is reflected, depending on the thickness of the layers and the refractive index difference. Such a material can be used for all kinds of purposes, like infrared reflecting windows (to save energy), sensors, or security labels. However, although these inorganic reflectors work very well, the materials are very costly, and it takes a lot of time to produce them.

As an alternative, we can make use of chiral nematic liquid crystals. This is a class of LCs that have a nematic liquid

Figure 1. Adding a chiral dopant to a nematic LC leads to a helical twist of the molecular director. [1]

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crystalline phase (the molecules can flow but are pointing in the same direction) to which a chiral dopant is added. This results in a helical twist of the director of the molecules (Figure 1). Because the LC molecules are anisotropic, they have a difference in their refractive index between both molecular axes. This means that when they go into a helix, the twist of the helix results in a periodic variation of the refractive index. So, the material resembles an inorganic photonic material, but the advantage is that it does not have to be produced layer by layer.

Another advantage is that we can easily tune the wavelength of light that is reflected, simply by tuning the pitch, which is the distance it takes for the molecules to make a full rotation.

Increasing this pitch results in a red-shift of the reflection, whereas decreasing the pitch leads to a blueshift. We can do this by either adding more or less chiral dopant, or making the polymer swell or shrink. Using these chiral nematic LCs, our group has for instance produced windows that can block infrared light to save

coatings could for instance be used in security labels, as it will be hard to copy this effect.

Figure 2. Schematic overview of the flexographic printing process. [4] energy in the summer (you need less air-conditioning) [2], and sensors for detecting calcium in blood (absorbing calcium changes the colour of the coating). [3] From these examples, you can already see that we can use these photonic materials for a wide range of applications. However, producing them on a large scale remains a challenge, and that is what I’m currently trying to improve in my research. Traditionally, to make LC-based materials we need to use alignment materials in small glass cells to obtain the correct LC orientation, for example. However, for future large-scale production, a manufacturing procedure is required that is simple, easily scalable, and industrially relevant. A production process that can make coatings on a plastic substrate would be ideal for this. Therefore, we have recently bought a flexographic printing setup in our group. This is a roll-to-roll processing method, that can produce coatings on a large scale (Figure 2), and that for instance is widely used in the packaging industry. With this setup, we should be able to simply print large strips of a chiral nematic reflector, instead of making small samples in glass cells.

Figure 3. Photograph of a patterned chiral nematic coating viewed at

multiple angles. [4]

However, when making coatings, the next challenge arises. The LC monomers that we normally use have acrylate groups that we can polymerize to make a stable film.

Yet, when you make a coating you will need a nitrogen environment to prevent inhibition of the polymerisation by oxygen. As you can imagine, if you want to print coatings on a large scale, it is hard and costly to create a homogeneous nitrogen atmosphere in your printer setup. Luckily, a while ago other LC monomers have been developed that contain oxetane groups instead of acrylates. Since these polymerise through a cationic ring-opening mechanism, they are not sensitive to oxygen and can be polymerised in air.

Therefore, we have recently developed and synthesised an oxetane-based chiral dopant that we can add to these oxetane LCs to get a chiral nematic liquid crystal. With these molecules, we were able to develop an LC ink that we can use in the flexographic printer. The results were immediately very nice: we can print large strips that beautifully reflect any colour that we want, and the total printing and polymerisation process now only takes a couple of minutes.

Furthermore, we have found that if we use a photomask during the UVpolymerisation, we can pattern the coatings at a high resolution. Not only do these coatings look very pretty (Figure 3), because they are printed on a flexible substrate also enhances the effect that a chiral nematic reflector has a different colour depending on the angle that you look at it. This means that these

In the future, we hope to further functionalise these coatings by making them responsive to various stimuli. Here, you can think of for instance heat, light, or humidity. We are certain that if we succeed in this, we will find even more interesting applications for this exciting class of molecules.

WRITTEN BY:

Davey Hoekstra Davey just entered the third year of his PhD in the group of Stimuli-responsive Functional Materials and Devices, working on responsive photonic coatings.

[1] Popova, M., Lowery Bretz, S., and Scott Hartley, C., J. Chem. Educ., 2016, 93, 1096-1099 [2] Khandelal, H., Schenning, A.P.H.J., and Debije, M.G., Adv. Energy Mater., 2017, 7, 1602209 [3] Moirangthem, M., Arts, R., Merkx, M., and Schenning, A.P.H.J., Adv. Funct. Mater., 2016, 26, 11541160 [4] Hoekstra, D.C., Nickmans, K., Lub, J., Debije, M.G., and Schenning, A.P.H.J., ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces, 2019, DOI: 10.1021/acsami.8b21464

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An evening with the Chef Committee ChefCie

The Chef Committee has been installed for more than half a year now. Our activities are going very well and recently we’ve even expanded from 5 to 9 members. We thought that it would be nice to give all Japie members an insight in what goes on in the preparation of one of our activities. How do we decide what we’re going to cook?

How do you cook a three-course meal for only €4,50 p.p. in under two and a half hours?

For the last six months, we’ve been trying to look for the best way to prepare for an activity. We found that it is best to prepare for an activity in three stages, which usually takes two or three meetings to complete.

First, we decide what we are going to cook. Usually, we already start thinking and discussing this when we’re cooking for a previous activity. As all members have a large encyclopedia of very delicious recipes available, we are never short of ideas.

Next, a cooking-plan and grocery list have to be made. We usually like to challenge ourselves in the recipes so a well-structured time based plan has to be made. Even though we like to hassle in the kitchen, we are also a bit lazy. We order the ingredients online at the supermarket, which we then pick up about four hours before the dinner has to be served. When we do it this way, we are ensured that we have all the ingredients available,

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as we don’t want to run into empty shelves. After that, the cooking plan and script are checked thoroughly and when all members are satisfied, we order the ingredients.

Then the cooking begins around 16:30. We either cook in Luna, or at Cosmos. Dinner is served at 19:00.

We sort out the ingredients for all the different dishes and then we start. We always have a MasterChef when we cook . His or her task is to make sure everybody works according to the plan and time schedule. The people that have worked in restaurants, or who have watched Gordon Ramsey, know the importance of such a person. At about 18:30 we finish off and start to bring everything to the location where we’re going to eat.

Being part of the ChefCie, you learn a lot: knife skills, how to handle a gigantic pumpkin, how to make pasta from scratch and how to work very efficient in the kitchen. Everyone

has different knowledge about food and how to prepare it. When dinner is served it is great to see everyone enjoying the things we’ve cooked!

However, learning and trying to learn so much from each other is also something that’s enjoyed by all members of the committee.

WRITTEN BY:

The ChefCie This freshly minted committee usually takes a ather scientific approach to cooking and gives some insight into their methods.

Study trip to Copenhagen Study trip

As a second year student, I have been around long enough to have heard all about the legendary Japie study trips, the stories from which would be still be told years after the trips themselves. So when the trip to Copenhagen was announced, I was quite quick to sign up. And, boy, am I glad I did.

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Now from all that I had heard about these study trips, I was well aware that between all of the company visits, educational, cultural and fun activities, there wouldn’t be too much time to get a proper night’s sleep.

What I hadn’t anticipated, however, was having to depart for Brussel Charleroi Airport at 1:30 am. While that was quite early, many of us thought that with sleeping on both the bus and the plane, we shouldn’t be too tired when we arrive in Copenhagen.

My sleeping plans, however, fell through as I had forgotten that no bus trip with Japie can possibly go without singing, lively conversations and having a few drinks. So after spending 2 hours chatting and passing around beers and Limoncello bottles, we arrived at the airport in Brussels, where the group divided in people napping on benches and people who somehow still had energy to joke around and have a few more beers. Few hours and a flight later, we arrived in Copenhagen having managed to catch anywhere between 0 and 4 hours of sleep.

After checking in the hostel and loading up on food and caffeine, we were as ready as we were going to get, for the busy day we had ahead of us.

It was around noon when we found our way to the KU-Københavns Universitet, where we were introduced to the university and its chemistry department. There, representatives of three research groups in the department gave us presentations on their work. After the presentations we got a tour of one of the spin

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off companies of the department, which specialized in air cleaning.

Afterwards students of the university gave us a presentation on the “study association” of the life sciences faculty of the university, which turned out to be something more similar to the Wervingsdagen than to Japie. Sadly we didn’t get to meet many students as they had, like us, just finished their exams and had a break. Lucky for us however, a handful of PhD/masters students had volunteered to give us a tour of the labs and tell us a bit about what student life in Copenhagen is like. By then it was almost dinnertime so after the tours we had pizzas with our tour guides and made plans to meet up with them later at a bar they recommended. Afterwards we headed back to the hostel where we had a much deserved nap, before getting ready and going out to get our first taste of Copenhagen’s night life.

Unfortunately we had taken longer than initially planned, so by the time we got to the bar, only one of the students was still there, but that didn’t stop us from having a fun. A few beers and drinking games later most of the group decided to call it a night “early” (around 2 o’clock) in order to be fresh in the morning.

On the second day, we set out to visit DTU - the Danish Technical University, which was located in the nearby town of Lyngby. There we visited the Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering and were introduced to their more practical approach to the study. After a few presentations we were given a

tour of the departments very own scaled down chemical plant with real reactors that students use for their practicums. Needless to say we were blown away by it, so there were plenty of inquiries about how expensive it would be to make one for our department (The answer was VERY). After lunch we walked to the headquarters of Hempel one of the world’s lead producers of coatings. There we were told about the importance of coating chemistry and learned how their core products worked. Afterwards we toured around the facilities and got insights in each step needed in the making of a coating. For dinner we had some amazing grilled meat with some awesome beers on the side at the Warpigs microbrewery. Then we headed over to the questionably cheap bar “Billy’s booze” where we partied for the rest of the night.

The next day we headed over to BIOFOS - a company responsible for the cleaning of the wastewater of Copenhagen. There we toured the aromatic facility and learned all about the circular economy they are trying to achieve. Afterwards we took a bus across town to AGC Biologics - a company that deals with the synthesis of proteins for many big pharmaceutical giants, where we had lunch and were introduced to their work by one of the founders.

Sadly, because most of the rooms were clean rooms, during the tour of the facility we could only look from the outside. After dinner we found ourselves in “Copenhagen’s F.O.R.T.”,

a student bar called “Studenterhuset”, where we had a few beers before going back to “Billy’s Booze” in order to take advantage of the 10 shots for 10 crowns (1.30 euros) deal.

Unsurprisingly that was a long night.

On Friday we made a trip to the Danish Design Museum where we saw examples of design trends from different periods and enjoyed their extensive collection of chairs.

After lunch we visited HOFOR - a water and energy supplier for the city of Copenhagen. There we were introduced to the work they do in pursuit of making Copenhagen a CO2-neutral city. We also learned a lot about the chemistry that goes in transforming ground water into drinkable water. After the presentations, we went on to walk around their showroom where we learned more about Copenhagen’s underground world, as we got to literally walk down a toilet and through a sewage. That evening we found out that the Copenhagen nightlife is by far at its busiest on a Friday night, with all of the clubs having a 10 meter line of people waiting to get in. It was also noticeable that most of us were vastly underdressed compared to Danish

party people, as our Stratum-casual look stood out among the crowds of people dressed up for a fashion show.

For those two reasons, we decided to go back to the hostel and have a few drinks there.

The following day we had a tour of the city where we got to see all of Copenhagen’s landmarks, including the surprisingly little Little Mermaid.

We spend our last evening in the city properly - by staying up partying until 4:30. The most awesome part of the night though was when we were waiting for the bus to get back to the hostel and started singing our beloved cantus songs. When the bus arrived our sing-along moved inside. The other passengers joined in singing with us, some even pulling out their phones to take videos.

Honestly though, I think they were very startled when we finished off with the Japie song before leaving the bus.

On Sunday morning we had a bit of time to pack our bags before we set off to the Tivoli Gardens: an amusement park positioned right in the center of Copenhagen. There we summoned our inner child and spend the whole day running around the park trying out all of the different rides. After the park, we went back to the hostel to get our bags and headed to the airport to catch our flight back to Eindhoven. It was an amazing trip, although I am pretty sure that I had never felt as exhausted as I did when we got back that evening. The memories though definitely made the sleep deprivation worth it.

WRITTEN BY:

Vilena Petrova Vilena wanted to share her experience of the study trip.

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Membership A full-time job Thomas on research

Almost all studies have study associations, but not all study associations are the same.

In quite some students cities in the Netherlands study associations arrange books and some career lectures, but by far not as many activities as the study associations in Eindhoven. Almost all students at our department are a member of T.S.V. ‘Jan Pieter Minckelers’, also known as Japie. Every week several activities take place, ranging from career lectures to sport activities. It is not uncommon to have two, or even three, activities on the same day. In this article we will investigate how many people take place in activities and which members are the most active.

The data used in this article is based on the participants of activities ranging from 1 September to the 20th of February. In this period 46 activities took place which required registration (activities such as a General Member Meeting don’t require registration). In total 365 members have participated so far in activities, which are almost

all students at the Department of Chemical Engineering and Chemistry.

In Figure 1 the distribution of the participation of all members who have participated in at least one activity is shown. The large fraction of single activity participation is mainly

due to the barbeque at the beginning of the year. Nevertheless, most of the members participate in more activities, with 22% of the people participating in more than 7 activities so far. The most active members are of course the board members of Japie.

On average, the board members have participated in 70% of all the activities.

The association counts approximately 70 people who are in a committee.

These 70 people account for 35% of all participation, but this is not strange considering their participation at their own activities. Overall there can be said that most members participate in all sorts of activities, ranging from sports, eating and career events.

Figure 1: Share of the members with their number of activities so far

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With, at this point in the year, already more than 46 different activities organized by Japie and her committees, many have already joined and enjoyed them. But who, aside from our board members, were the absolute winners? Which persons cannot get enough of all activities?

Have activities changed over the years? With the help of the ‘way back machine’ from the Internet Archive (google it, it’s quite fun), we looked at the Japie sites from the past 17 years.

Fun fact: the oldest webpage we could find was from February 2002. The website was back then a subdomain of the webpage of the university, around 2007 tsvjapie.nl was registered.

Table 1 shows top participants (excluding the board members).

The table also clearly shows that participants are from all years.

There are quite a few members who have had a fair share of activities, dinners, lunch lectures, excursions and of course parties. We trust that we can find their enthusiasm in many future activities as well.

Even though the website has changed a lot, the activities have stayed almost the same. Although Kekulé and Prometheus were still active then, chemiecafe, excursions, case studies and career lectures have stayed the same. Even though a lot is still the same, those archives might be a good source of inspiration for committees for future activities. Some activities of the past decade: knakworstkanen, an excursion at a chemical plant during a turn-around, a poker tournament and ‘matten met de ME’.

It is difficult to estimate the activity of each cohort, since some activities

are for freshmen only. Other activities such as career events are more popular at older students. It is therefore hard to compare, since it depends a lot on the number of activities hosted.

Nevertheless, more than half of all the freshmen have been to an activity with them adding up to almost 20% of all the people who have gone to an activity. Not only have they joined quite a few activities, but they make up a nice part of the most active members as well. Let’s hope it won’t be a problem for them to get their BSA…

WRITTEN BY:

Thomas Werkhorst Teun Prinsen With so many activities, Teun and Thomas were curious how the distribution of participant was.

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The very first LadyCie LadyCie

We, Cynthia and Merel, are the LadyCie’s first committee members. This committee is targeted towards Japie’s female members. We strive to organize activities that are more focused on us ladies.

Cynthia is a 19 year old second-year bachelor student who is interested in creating activities that attract the people who usually are not interested in going to the Japie activities. She wants to get more people involved in Japie and make sure that everyone can enjoy their time at our association.

Cynthia likes to do creative things, such as drawing and painting, and also enjoys hanging out with friends.

Furthermore, cooking is also one of her hobbies.

become an active member of Japie.

This committee spoke to her because she was not accepted to join the first year committee. Moreover, Merel is very lucky to join the LadyCie because we are allowed to wear pink!

In her spare time she likes to read and watch Netflix. Just like Cynthia, she likes to cook (and eating it when it is done).

Merel is also 19 years old, but is a first-year bachelor student. She joined the LadyCie because she wanted to

We both want to get the best out of this committee and we do this with Sabine’s, Japie’s 61st treasurer.

We had our first activity on the 11th of January and it was a great success!

We started out with a high tea with a humongous amount of food to make sure everyone had enough energy for the Just Dance that followed.

The winner of the evening was Vera Crommentuijn who went home with an amazing prize, a pink flamingo.

There are still two activities left, which we are already planning. We will make sure that these are just as successful, or even better, as our first activity. Make sure you are going to be there to not miss out on an amazing evening!

WRITTEN BY:

The LadyCie Cynthia and Merel wanted to introduce themselves and this new committee.

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We push technology further to print microchip features that are ďƒžner

to make the energy use of a battery more eďŹƒcient

to make electric cars the standard

Do you dream of changing the world of innovation? Do complex technological challenges appeal to your imagination? We are looking for you. ASML always wants to get in touch with eager and curious students.

Join us at workingatasml.com/students

The Hollywood revolution The Oscars

Since the very first Academy Awards in 1929, the so-called Oscars have changed from a small gathering in a private dinner hall, to a multimillion-dollar grossing theater show featuring celebrity shows and appearances. Even though many aspects of the awards have changed, some things have stayed the same over the last 90 years. One such example is the members of the institution that decides which films win the prizes, and which don’t.

The old The original aim of the Acadamy Awards is to recognize the technical and artistic merit of the film industry and recognize and applaud cinematic achievements in film making by giving out Oscars across many different fields and crafts in the industry. These awards are chosen by a select panel of judges that consists of several people working in the film industry. Even though having judges form the film industry judging films sounds like a good plan, this structure has recently undergone some criticism.

The very first academy panel created in 1927 basically consisted of the

leaders of Hollywood’s biggest movie studios including MGM, the biggest at that time. And even though it might seem like a great idea on paper, it doesn’t take a huge leap in logic to realize that this system might very well lead to a conflict in interest. The leader of a giant film company voting for one of their own films as movie of the year, what could be wrong with that? Safe to say, in the early days of the Acadamy Awards, money and investment for the future were the main orders of business.

Even though some grievances with this system have been remedied due to the inclusion of a much larger group of panel voters (around 7000), some things have stayed the same during all

these years; the demographic. In 2012 a study by the Los Angeles Times showed that of the Academy voters, 94% were Caucasian, 77% were male, and 54% were found to be over the age of 60.

The new This monolithic structure of a predominantly male, white and elderly voting panel has not gone unnoticed during the last couple of years. In 2016, a movement under the very aptly and social media-centered name of #OscarsSoWhite, drew the attention of the current Academy’s president, Boone Isaacs. In response to this, several changes were made in the institution. Academy membership

is now limited to 10 years, and members who are not involved in new film projects during that time lose their voting rights. The Academy also added more than 1,200 people of color along with more women and far younger members, all with the intent of keeping an eye on diversity.

The conflict All of this might seem fine on paper, but things are rarely that simple. Due to the arrival of this entirely new and diverse group of voters, there are now effectively two different Academies voting for the Oscars.

The old Academy, which is Hollywood-centric, sees films as business as much as art, thinks films should be watched and not read using subtitles, favors dramas with strong storylines and empathetic characters over mood and atmosphere and seems to hate Netflix for blurring the lines between traditional television and theatrical releases is pitted against the new Academy.

The new Academy, which is indieand internationally oriented, resents money getting in the way of art, thinks good films can often have subtitles, places mood and atmosphere in high regard and couldn’t care less about Netflix as long as someone is funding decent film making are fighting back against the still larger old Academy.

The revolution (?)

As the conflict within the Academy rages, the results are rather interesting. Award nominations for best actors and best pictures contain many more diverse entries that would never have been considered under the old Academy. The 2019 Oscars even featured a certain film nomination for ‘Best Picture’ from a genre that has never been featured in the awards

but was bound to be nominated; a superhero movie.

Marvel’s ‘Black Panther’ is the first superhero movie in history to be nominated for the Best Picture award, next to being the highest grossing solo superhero film ever, highest grossing feature by a black director and highest open weekend gross by a predominantly black cast. Many were wondering if this film actually had a real chance to win and also if it should win?

During a ceremony in which numerous awards were won by women and people of color, at the end the final winner for Best Picture of the year turned out to be ‘Green Book’ and not one of the other nominees like ‘Black Panther’ or ‘BlacKkKlansman’, a film about infiltrating the KKK. This choice is considered to be a safe choice for the Academy with the film being a largely enjoyable but simultaneously forgettable movie about how all we need to do to overcome racism is talk to each other. Among all the other nominees for this year’s prestigious price, ‘Green Book’ seems to be one of the blandest ones.

All of this together basically boils down to a tied game for the old and the new Academy. The diversity is higher, but the end results are still mostly the same as they were over the last 50 years.

liked but what truly brings audiences together; why should the Academy ignore the movies’ most popular genre and the biggest, most diverse audiences?

Some might say: ‘Screw what the Oscars think!’ But it’s too easy to just wipe away the opinion of a group of people that basically make the entire big screen movie business happen.

The Academy does have say in which movies are deemed popular and will be made more of over the couple years.

All things considered, due the changing social climate we find ourselves in now, it would be foolish to say that the revolution of the new Academy is going to stop anytime soon. But most importantly for anyone reading this; watch the movies you want to watch, not just the ones the Oscars want you to watch.

The future WRITTEN BY:

Even though some strides have been made to change the way the Oscars are handed out, several issues are often brought up. One such issue is the unwillingness of the Academy to pick a very popular large movie (or movie genre) as the winner for best picture. If the Oscars are about celebrating not what Academy voters

Alex van de Greef Movie enthusiast Alex wanted to give some insight into the changes that are happening in Hollywood’s Oscar ceremony.

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Kim Pauwels Interview

Since 2009, Kim Pauwels is the academic adviser for the Department of Chemical Engineering and Chemistry. She is the one to whom students can go to, to puzzle out their study program and to find answers to any other study-related questions. Many students will get in contact with Kim, often during the first-year of their bachelor. If you haven’t yet, we hope you’ll get to know her better by reading this interview.

Can you tell us something about your career path?

After I finished pre-university education, I studied chemistry at the University Of Applied Sciences (HBO). I loved the experiments in the laboratories. For a long time, I was most interested in biochemistry and I thought I would specialize in that area. Nevertheless, this changed when I had my first organic synthesis lab course. Experimenting with chemicals is great fun! During my study I did two internships, one at AkzoNobel in Arnhem and one at DSM in Geleen. The people there convinced me to continue with an academic study in chemistry. I decided to study Polymer Chemistry at the University of Groningen, because their study program fitted my previous knowledge best. I stayed in Groningen for a PhD about the prevention of PVC degradation. (Side note: The results of one of Kim’s less successful PVC batch syntheses is still in her office and serves as a pencil holder.) Although it turned out to be very tricky to prevent degradation, I’ve really liked the project and I’ve learned a lot.

My PhD research was done in close collaboration with Shell. I considered going there after my PhD, but after a few talks I could not see myself working there. I was also certain that I didn’t want to continue doing

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research at a university. I knew the program director Alex van Herk of the Department of Chemical Engineering and Chemistry at Eindhoven, since he was a professor in Polymer Science and we met during the annually organized Dutch Polymer Days. He told me they had a vacancy for the position of “communications advisor”, and I decided to apply and got the job. My responsibilities were to organize the open days, the “vwo werkweek”, visit secondary schools, inform secondary school students about the program and so on. Although I liked the job, I couldn’t see myself doing it for a longterm. It was not satisfying enough, and I was very soon interested in becoming an academic advisor of the department.

But first, I changed to the position of ‘International Coordinator’. I guided incoming and outgoing students who did an exchange with a university abroad. Meanwhile, the program director had asked me to set up a minor program in polymer science and I was also responsible for the polymer chemistry course in that minor for one year. I already had experience with assisting guided selfstudies during my PhD in Groningen for a similar course but giving lectures was completely new to me. I liked it, but again I felt like it was not my final station. Building up the new

minor was fun to do as well, although the minor doesn’t exist anymore since after the introduction of the Bachelor College it has disappeared.

I was the communication advisor and was coordinating the exchange programs until my second child was born. Back then, one of my colleagues was the academic advisor for the bachelor students and Ingeborg Scheur-Piet was for the master students. At a given day, Ingeborg called me to tell me she wanted to resign. She then asked me if I was willing to take over the position of academic advisor for the master and pre-master students, and I accepted.

When the bachelor academic advisor resigned as well, I slowly became the academic advisor for all chemistry students. Next to being academic advisor, I’m also the advisor for the Program Committee and Exam Committee. I don’t have the rights to vote, but now and then I attend the meetings and give advice.

What do you like most about the job of academic advisor?

I like to help students, to convince them that they can do the things they want to achieve and to figure out together how we can solve their problems. I’m also frequently puzzling together with students to fit all the courses they want to take in their program. Sometimes students want

to plan too much in too little time.

When I tell it is alright to have a bit of a delay, they are very relieved. When I was young, I faced the same problems as students do now. Sometimes people just need someone to talk to, as a kind of mirror. Problems seem very big when you keep them for yourself. Sharing them can help to make the problems seem smaller and to deal with them. Helping students with this gives me a good feeling. It is very rewarding to see a worried student come in my office, and then leaving with a big smile on his or her face. Some students come back later to thank me, which makes me feel very happy.

What is the funniest question a student has ever asked you?

My door is always open for students and once during lunch break, I was sitting at my desk when a first-year student came in and asked if he can sit down in my office and eat his sandwich…” I feel flattered that students have the idea that they can ask me anything. Also, when I say “this is not something I can help you with” they are not disappointed.

If you had to choose another profession, what would it be?

That would probably be another job in which I can talk to and advice people.

Before I started with my chemistry study, I’ve considered to study psychology. I’m very comfortable with helping people and talking to them. I really like how being the academic advisor combines science and working with people. I hear a lot of chemistry, but I’m deaIing with psychology as well, even though I’m not a psychologist. I enjoy the freedom to be able to talk with students and to learn from this every day. After each talk I have with a student, I reflect on what went well and what I could do better next time. There are not a lot

of these kind of jobs in the chemistry sector. I’m very comfortable with where I am currently. However, the future is also very exciting to me. I don’t know if this will be my final job.

I would like to grow further, to have more responsibilities.

Do you have any advice for students?

What I think is most important for students is that once you decided to do something, for example to do a certain study, then just go for it!

However, later on you may realize that it was not the best decision, and then it is not wrong to change your plans either. It is not the end of the world. Your path may not go as you had expected at first, but in the end you’ll find something that suits you.

Accept the mistakes you’ve made in the past and move on. And make sure you have a good balance between studying and relaxing as well. I clearly see two different types of students coming to me. A lot of girls are worried because they want to do too much. They lack self-confidence and that is a pity because they are really hard working. On the other hand, some guys I need to ask to be a little bit more serious. Of course, it can also be the other way around, but on general I see this trend between the two genders.

Quick fire questions: Family: I’m married and have three children, who are seven, ten and thirteen years old, respectively.

Hobbies/ free time activities I plan to do a lot of things, but since I have little free time, I don’t bring all those plans into action. What I do for several years now is running. I started with a small group for 5 km runs and realized I really enjoyed it. So, I continued doing it, also for longer distances. I now run twice a week. Once alone with my radio and on Saturdays with a group through a forest. I also play badminton and like to do handcrafting and house decorating.

Skill I want to learn I would love to learn crocheting, so that I can make scarfs and other things for my children. *Showing us a crocheted Harry Potter puppet on Pinterest* For example, I want to make this puppet for my oldest child, who is a huge Harry Potter fan!

What achievement are you most proud of?

WRITTEN BY:

Limi Kalapurackal Mariska Brüls

On the private level, having my own family is a huge achievement and very important to me. On the career level, it is that I have found the job that fits me.

Now I’m doing the things I love to do, I help people and I even earn money with

Limi and Mariska wanted you to get to know our favorite academic adviser a bit better.

it. I don’t look back on the past, I accepted that I didn’t immediately come where I wanted to be, and I’m happy with where I am today.

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Spring Chemistry in real life

Whilst writing this article, my surroundings look like a set of the Frozen-movie. It has been a true winter for the past two weeks and some of you probably got sick of it quite quickly. When you are reading this, spring has come and hopefully brought some nice weather. After the cold winter days, it is a blessing to experience the first days of walking around in short sleeves without jacket or enjoy “Rokjesdag�.

Vitamin D As most of you readers will know, it is essential for human beings to be outside, as we produce vitamin D from UV light within our bodies.

Following traditional definitions of a vitamin, vitamin D should, however, not be classified as one. Vitamins are typically defined as micronutrients that an organism needs in order to have a properly functioning metabolism, but the organism is not able to produce it itself. The reason we still call vitamin D a vitamin, is because normally the endogenic synthesis is not enough to provide a human with all the vitamin D it needs. One way to help this endogenic process is by going out and letting the rays of spring sunshine hit your pale skin.

Before vitamin D can be made inside your skin, some enzymes first have to start working. By de-hydrogenating

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T-Licht Issue 23.3

the cholesterol that is already present in your body on the seventh position, 7-dehydrocholesterol is created. By making use of ultraviolet radiation from the sun, mainly the light with a wavelength between 270 nm and 300 nm, your skin turns this precursor into provitamin D3. Via a spontaneous slow isomerization, vitamin D3 is actually produced, which can then be used in your body.

[1] If you are not able to get into the sun, there are other ways to get your vitamin D3. Whilst I would advise against using a tanning bed, there are multiple options to vary your diet to ensure you take in enough vitamin D. A good example for this is eating fish with a high fat percentage, like salmon or tuna.

Although vitamin D is not known as a substance that makes a person feel extra happy, is sure has some positive effects on the human body.

It is found that vitamin D has a great impact on your alertness, memory,

concentration and reaction speed.

Moreover, the extra production of this chemical does not only increase these mental elements, it also strengthens your physique. Vitamin D is used by the body to strengthen teeth and bones, improve muscle performance and is used in the general immune system. This explains why your cold disappears in the spring and hopefully does not return until the winter starts again.

Hormones As mentioned previously, there are, other ways to get vitamin D into your system. Just the extra production of it due to sunlight can, therefore, not be the only explanation why you feel better in spring. Luckily there are other explanations as well.

Being out in the sun leads to the production of extra hormones. One of the extra produced hormones is serotonin.[2] This hormone, which is a neurotransmitter that

is found in all bilateral animals, is known for controlling things like well-being and happiness. It might come as no surprise then that most antidepressant drugs work on the serotonin receptors in your body.

It is thought that sunlight can help

your body release more serotonin and thus make you feel better, in a similar way as how darkness induces the production of melatonin, causing you to sleep.[3]

been shown by some researchers that the levels of testosterone can increase up to 70% when someone is out in the sun more.[4,5] Although the name testosterone might mainly ring a bell for you as the male sex steroid, it is not only found in men. In the early stages of the embryo it will lead to the development of the male genitals, but when the body has completely developed, certain concentrations are present in both males and females.

Testosterone is known to have a role in controlling the libido in this stage of life. The increase of testosterone in your body will lead to increased sexual desires. This would explain the fact why so many relationships start in the spring and why you, as a single person, can sometimes feel left out if you see couples everywhere. The process of falling in love is of course facilitated by the fact that people look happier and some shorter clothes are taken out of the drawers.

Serotonin is not the only hormone that gets produced more when the body enters sunlight. Everyone knows the stories they were told about little lambs being born in spring, but although they are the product of love, most of the love actually just starts in the spring. It has

As you can see, there are quite some chemical reasons behind the general feeling of happiness you can experience in the spring. My advice?

Get out there and enjoy every bit of sunshine you can. Before you know it, the typical Dutch weather will make its entry and it is warm and humid

“testosterone can increase up to 70% when someone is out in the sun more.”

like a tropical rainforest, or a pouring rain obstructs your craving for some fresh air. Some advice specifically to the F.O.R.T.-cie: combine the useful with the pleasant and organize as many “buitenborrels” as you can, to make the most of the springtime!

WRITTEN BY:

Bart van den Bersselaar Writing this article, Bart wanted to stress the importance of getting out there and enjoying spring while you can.

[1]:https://cjasn.asnjournals.org/ content/3/5/1548.full [ 2 ] : h t t p s : / / w w w. t e l e g r a a f . n l / nieuws/841498/waarom-wordenwe-zo-vrolijk-van-de-lentehierom?utm_source=google&utm_ medium=organic [ 3 ] : h t t p s : / / w w w. h e a l t h l i n e . com/health/depression/benefitssunlight#mental-health [4]:http://hormone-zone.com/blog/ sunlight-increases-testosteronesexual-desire/ [5]:https://viteau.nl/blog/ ontspanning/dit-i s-waarom-jegelukkig-wordt-van-zon/

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VSI/e Theme Event “Health Innovation” VSI/e

VSI/e Theme Events are organized on a yearly base. The target audience consists of the TU/e Chemical Engineering & Chemistry alumni, PhD’s and students. The objective is to offer the attendees an attractive program, linked to one of the TU/e strategic areas, as well as an excellent opportunity for networking between today’s and senior fellow students. On March 15th 2019 the third VSI/e Theme Event was organized with the theme “Health Innovation”.

The TU/e considers Health as a key focus area, as society faces numerous challenges in the field of healthcare.

Technology can play a crucial role in addressing these challenges, which will lead to new products and services in the healthcare industry. This role was excellently illustrated by the invited speakers during the March 15th session on “Health Innovation”.

Carmen van Vilsteren, director Strategic Area Engineering Health, elucidated the global challenges on healthcare and explained the focus areas within the TU/e strategic area “Engineering Health”.

The director of the Institute for Complex Molecular Systems (ICMS), Jan van Hest, showed the role of ICMS within “Engineering Health” and explained the route from

molecular assembly to regenerative medicine based on two examples: 1) nanochemistry within thrombosis recovery processes, and 2) the engineering approach to regenerate living tissues for the human heart valves.

The Eindhoven student team International Genetic Engineered Machine (iGEM) showed the 2018 project “Gelcatraz: A Novel platform for Living Materials” for which they won a golden medal at the global iGEM competition organized by the highly reputable ITM institute.

Reinder Haakma from Philips closed the session by presenting Philips’ mission and strategy on healthcare and showed an example of remote patient monitoring, a healthcare innovation project by Philips and MedTec Innovation Center Eindhoven.

The attendees (~60 persons) witnessed a very successful session due to the interesting, motivating and inspiring presentations. There was a lot of interaction between the audience and the speakers which

even led to potential new ideas and were discussed further in more detail during the informal get-together at the end. We also got suggestions for subjects for the VSI/e Theme Event 2020.

Till next year!

WRITTEN BY:

Henk van ‘t Blik As a member of the organization of the Theme event, Henk wanted to tell all readers about it.

Pro tips for being the foreigner in the room Carte blanche

It can sometimes be tough being the only international around. Dutchies aren’t really used to your presence and often forget about that minor detail that you don’t really speak Dutch, so as much as they try to only speak English around you at some point they switch and that’s just how life is. As an international, who mostly hangs out with Dutch people, I thought I would give a few tips on dealing with that.

Being a part of one of the first cohorts for which our study is in English, being international means automatically that you are a part of a minority. Because of that many internationals end up mostly hanging out with other internationals, because it’s just more convenient than putting yourself in the awkward position of having to remind people of your presence. And if you keep avoiding that, the awkwardness will never go away and you face the danger of missing out on quite a bit of the awesomeness that Dutch people have to offer.

1. Remind them that you are there.

In my experience, I’ve never seen anyone actually trying to exclude an international from the conversation.

“or in the case of big groups shouting out “Engels!” helps a lot” Speaking Dutch is their “natural state” so when you are in a group, it’s normal that they slip up and switch.

As far as I have seen just giving a reminder or in the case of big groups shouting out “Engels!” helps a lot.

2. Start up a conversation. Yeah, it’s not always easy to just randomly start talking to someone in English when everyone around you is talking Dutch. It’s actually crazy intimidating.

But once you manage to get yourself

to do it a few times, striking up a conversation becomes easier. An added bonus is that when you are more open towards people they will also be more likely to approach you.

3. Take a Dutch course. Okay, I know how this sounds. “No shit, learning Dutch will solve the problem”.

Obviously learning a whole language is no easy feat, especially when you have to balance that with your studies. However even taking just the beginners courses the university provides (and reaching the glorious level of A2) will make life much easier.

After a while you start to be able to grasp some of the conversations, and while you’ll probably still respond in English, it still makes a difference.

It is usually quite appreciated when the person you are talking to is able to throw a Dutch word in the conversation without having to fumble around for the translation for 5 minutes (they feel awkward too).

WRITTEN BY:

Vilena Petrova Being one of the first international bachelor students, Vilena wanted to give some tips for all international students.

33

Internship at Chemelot Internship

History of Chemelot The Dutch State Mines, DSM, opened the Maurits state mine in Geleen, which started the exploitation of coal at the 1st of January 1926. This coal was not suitable for fuel for households so a coke plant was build, which started operating in 1929.

The cokes and gases from the ovens created an opportunity for chemistry in Geleen. In 1930, the chemical binding of nitrogen via the HaberBosch-process was the start of the production of fertilizers. DSM even started producing alcohol from the ethene obtained in their crackers.

In the 50’s and 60’s the diversification proceeded into a range of new products. The main focus was on the production of Urea (a compound for fertilizers) and Caprolactam (a compound for nylon). In the late 50’s the demand for Polyethene was rising so DSM closed the alcohol plant and switched to the production of LDPE and HDPE from naphtha.

In the 70’s the mines were closed and DSM had to find another source of business. New products were ACN, acrylonitrile, for fibres and PVC, Polypropylene and ABS (acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene) for the production of plastics. Another hot topic during this period was water purification. DSM built their first water treatment plant and simultaneously took actions to reduce air pollution.

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T-Licht Issue 23.3

My internship In the 80’s DSM started researching high value chemicals, creating the well-known Dynema fibre, synthetic sweetener Aspartame, and Stanyl, better known as Nylon 4-6. In 1985 the first “third party” company, Carbolim, joined the site. Carbolim extracted CO2 from off gases to purify for the food industry.

In the 90’s DSM had outgrown itself and had to revert from their diversifications. Over 10 years almost all services such as railway traffic, infrastructure, laboratories for quality control, waste management and storage of chemicals were transferred to different companies. DSM focussed on plastics and started the Dutch Polymer Institute in Eindhoven. In 1998 the focus switched again, now leaning towards materials & life science products.

In 2002, the petrochemical industry in Geleen was transferred to Sabic.

With these two large companies the name Chemelot, a combination of chemistry and lot, was chosen.

After major reorganisations and a lot of protests, DSM decided to open the terrain in 2005, which is seen as the starting point for Chemelot.

Nowadays Chemelot counts roughly 150 companies and 60 plants.

By the time I was ready for my internship I had heard a lot about Chemelot. However, when I was asked what I wanted to do on the site I realised there is so much going on at a chemical site that I had never seen before. For an open minded student with no real preference for a function, this net of possibilities might feel like a maze. Good thing you are not alone!

During your time on the university you have the opportunity to network and build the foundation for your future career. What might seem as a foolish or idle friendship or connection might be your way into your dream company later. The road ahead is unclear and can be shaped by the person walking it. A simple question can be the start of something big.

I chose to leave my university connections for what they were and approached a career centre. I was uncertain of what kind of work I wanted to do. A career centre has a good overview on what is available at the moment you apply. After attending 1 or 2 intake interviews after which a connection is made with a suitable company and division.

For myself they hit the nail right on the head as they placed me in the sustainability group of Sitech.

Sitech services is a technology partner for Chemelot and of the process industry in general. They analyse, optimize and maximize so that the plants of their customers maintain their competitive edge.

The services provided range from security, safety, infrastructure and utilities till maintenance, plant modifications, reliability assessments, integrity assessments, analytics and IT. This broad spectrum makes Sitech a strong and diverse business partner for site users, while it offers flexible jobs for starting engineers.

“Try to get as much out of your internship as possible” The Chemelot Sustainability team is an interdisciplinary team tasked with monitoring the growth of projects on Chemelot to ensure sustainable innovation. The topics discussed involve both environmental effects as well as plant wide effects. Due to the complex connections on the site, changes in a single plant also affect the total balance on the entire site.

I applied at the Chemelot Career Centre since I was still uncertain

in which field I wanted to do my internship. The Chemelot Career Centre not only handles the intake of new employees but also the career opportunities for employees. After an open intake, a suitable workspace is contacted for you to apply on a position. For me it didn’t take long to find a suitable assignment to work on within a passionate and dedicated team.

The topic and content, although very interesting, are not the most important factors of my internship.

I was placed in an open office with different engineering professions, learning a lot about how different fields have different perspectives and approaches to problems. Within the Chemelot Sustainability team I learned and gained a new perspective on chemistry and the chemical industry. From my first week as an intern I was attending actual meetings and finding myself sitting with the Executive Director of Chemelot and old Japie Board Member: Robert Claasen during my second week.

These meetings gave insight to the financial drive and possible concerns and problems concerning changes or new technology and environmental issues.

If there is one advice I can give you all it would be: Don’t be afraid to ask. When approaching people with enthusiasm and curiosity, the worst thing that could happen is someone says: no. Try to get as much out of your internship as possible and don’t turn down opportunities that might broaden your perspective. I for one am curious to see where a Chemical site like Chemelot will be in 10 years time!

WRITTEN BY:

Huib Limpens Huib wanted to share his experience at Sitch on the Chemelot campus in Limburg.

35

Druk door drugs Y van de huismeester

Het gaat goed met de faculteit. Het aantal nieuwe studenten zit flink in de lift en de gevolgen daarvan zijn voor iedereen te zien. Niet alleen in de vorm van lange wachtrijen voor de soep du jour of aan de bar van de F.O.R.T., maar ook aan het gedrag van trotse STmedewerkers. Waar ik zelf grotendeels aan de wieg stond van de wederopstanding van de Faculteit Scheikundige Technologie kom ik regelmatig collega’s tegen die zich op de borst kloppen nu onze opleiding weer in trek is.

Het is makkelijk om die aanmeldingenboost toe te schrijven aan de kwaliteit van het onderwijs of het charisma van de docenten, maar die vlieger gaat niet op. Dat blijkt tenminste uit onderzoek dat ik samen met Pieter Tops, hoogleraar bestuurskunde aan de UvT en verbonden aan de politieacademie, heb uitgevoerd. Pieter – zo mag ik hem noemen – heeft pas zijn bevindingen gepresenteerd en wat

“er wordt hulp van binnenuit de faculteit geboden”

blijkt: scheikundestudenten staan massaal aan de basis van de creatie van synthetische drugs. Uit ons onderzoek komt onder andere naar voren dat het grootste gedeelte van onze eerstejaars criminele banden heeft, en al vaker in aanraking is geweest met justitie.

En vanzelfsprekend lopen we in Eindhoven voorop in de polonaise.

Zijn het alleen studenten die zich strafbaar gedragen? Nee, er wordt hulp van binnenuit de faculteit geboden aan de criminele student.

Een aantal handlangers wordt met naam en toenaam benoemd in het onderzoeksrapport. Onze postkamermedewerker Rudolf Paol stuurt, zo blijkt, al jarenlang verdachte pakketten naar Indonesië. Hij heeft zelf altijd beweerd dat er poedermelk voor zijn buitenechtelijke kinderen

in de pakketjes zit, maar nu weet ik wel beter. Nu snap ik ook een stuk beter dat Rudolf in een supersnelle Mercedes cabrio rijdt.

Ook een stapje hoger op de hiërarchische faculteitsladder gaat het er eveneens niet zuiver aan toe.

Verschillende personen worden verdacht van delinquent gedrag. Zo wordt een student die al jarenlang zijn drugslabrador mee naar de colleges neemt stelselmatig geweigerd binnen Helix. Niet door mij – ik heb niets te verbergen – maar door de directie van de faculteit. Ook dat is met de wetenschap van nu goed te verklaren.

Of dacht je soms dat het toeval was dat deze persoon jaarlijks zijn SUV BMW in kan ruilen voor een nieuw exemplaar?

WRITTEN BY:

Michael Scheepers Michael wil zijn zorgen uiten over de reden waarom studenten nu echt scheikundige technologie gaan studeren.

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T-Licht Issue 23.3

Plant 101

keeping your herbs alive Carte blanche

You might be familiar with this scenario: you have to use fresh herbs for a recipe so you go to the supermarket to buy a plant, because for some strange reason this is just as expensive as buying a small package of herbs. Sadly within a week, your plant is starting to look quite depressing and before you know it, the plant has ended up in the trash (again). So what is the secret to keeping them alive?

First, herbs from the supermarket are not meant to survive. These so-called “plofplantjes� are grown at such a fast rate that the stems are too fragile to keep the plant up (that is also the reason why herbs from the supermarket are wrapped in a protective layer of plastic).

Furthermore, the plants are grown so close to each other that they do not have enough room to grow properly.

It is, therefore, important to put your plant in a new pot with fresh ground so they have enough room and nutrition to strengthen themselves.

Next, put the pot on a separate platter so you can give them water from the bottom instead of the top. Most herbs like to choose themselves when to take up water. Furthermore, giving water from the top might be too much

for fragile herbs such as basil and cilantro. Remember to check every day whether the plant is still standing in a layer of water! Put the herbs in the windowsill so they get three to six hours of sunlight every day without the temperature changing too much.

Most herbs are most comfortable at temperatures around 15-20 degrees Celsius; however, herbs such as rosemary, thyme and sage can be put outside once they have become a bit stronger.

Once your new herbs have had some time to adjust to their new pot, you might want to actually use them for your cooking. There are two different ways to harvest your herbs: cutting off an entire stem or just using a couple of leaves. If you want to use an entire

stem, use scissors to cut the stem approximately two centimetres above the ground. This way the plant has the opportunity to grow again. If you just need a couple of leaves, make sure that you pick leaves from different stems so you do not weaken the plant.

While the smaller leaves have the most flavour, it is sometimes best to use the bigger leaves so the plant is able to grow properly.

Have fun cooking!

WRITTEN BY:

Woutje ter Weel After struggling herself, Woutje has finally found a way to keep her herbs alive!

37

Going back to High School Carte blanche

High School seems far away for most of us, but there are actually some students already going back to High School to complete the teachers program at the TU/e.

However, it seems that a lot has changed since we left High School ourselves.

After two years of absence, I was able to visit high school again. However, this time I was not the student sitting in the class, but the teacher standing right in front of it. Via the teacher education track of ESoE they teach you how to teach. In the end you get a license and the best part of it is that you get exemption of the ‘oh so loved’ USE tracks.

reaction equation, not knowing about the term ‘mol’ at all. This is also what makes teaching difficult for me right now. Explaining a subject at the right level without going beyond the scope of the book is challenging. And that is why Marieke is there to improve my skills and otherwise there are the meetings with the other trainees in which we discuss these situations.

This resulted in me ending up at the Dr.-Knippenbergcollege in Helmond, where Marieke Coebergh (Japie board back in the days the F.O.R.T. did not exist yet) guides me. The internship started with just sitting at the back of the class, observing and getting to know the school. It feels weird being back, because on the one hand I feel like I have long past that stadium. On the other hand, I could have been just like one of them since the age gap is not that big after all. However, some things have changed. The ‘bruggers’ do not have their big bags anymore.

Instead, they all grab their tablet to watch some Fortnite videos in the break.

Here we also discussed the first classes we gave. For me it was more tensive than I expected. I talked faster and forgot to mention some things.

Luckily, the class saved me. They were not hesitant to ask questions and made me repair my mistakes.

Nowadays, I am more relaxed and enjoying being the one in charge of the knowledge the students gain.

The real difference is made once we’re inside the classroom. If you take a look at the chemistry books, the material is so little and easy compared to university. Havo 3 is just being taught how to set up a

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T-Licht Issue 23.3

But teaching is more than being the one who ‘knows it all’, because being a babysitter is included as well. I did not expect that five out thirty people can create chaos and you all know if you were part of them. That is why there is a Friday drink in which we can happily look back to the days we were in high school.

WRITTEN BY:

Douwe Orij Douwe wanted to share his experience as a teacher so far.

Wist je dat... ... Volgens Gijs L. verkrachting deel is van de opvoeding

... volgens Bart van den B. alle CPT’ers een k*taccent hebben?

... de bonken van Irian H. te groot zijn voor het gaatje?

... je wist-je-datjes naar tlicht.st@tue.nl kan sturen of in kan leveren op de Japiekamer?

... Rosa G. gemiddeld enthousiast is over Joppe S.?

... Raoul H. niet wist dat er een wist je dat-bus bestaat?

... de tepels van Bart van den B. een hoax zijn?

... volgens Fabiënne L. palladium de hoogste anciënniteit heeft?

... Joppe S. zich ook doodeet als je hem oneindig kapsalon geeft?

... Yannick A. de oliemagnaten de schuld geeft van Cola Zero accumulatie?

39

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