In my first semester, I had the chance to work with Tobias Hoffmann. In the course of this project, we noticed that our different backgrounds were not only enriching for each other, but also resulted in a successful project work. Tobias had studied product design, and we both came tu the University of Technology Eindhoven to develop ourselves further in our Masters.

When we were looking for a challenge which would allow us  to enhance our skills beyond the scope of the normal academic program, we decided to join the Honors Academy. Through a joint project, we wanted to learn from each other and achieve a meaningful result.

As for both of us the social impact of our work as designers plays a crucial role, we aimed for a project which was close to the users. For this reason, we looked for the collaboration with an external partner, through which we could achieve a result with true added for the users.

We started with a project in the health care area, which was well and our motivation was growing with every meeting we had with the client, and especially the users. However, things developed differently than initially planned. On the one hand, the communication and organization with the partner was slower than expected. This led to a delay in our project plan, which made it increasingly difficult to achieve the desired result in the time planned. On the other hand, Tobias and I were also collaborating on ‘volo’, a communication system for an autonomous driving car.

Both projects were running in parallel and thus taking a lot of our time. We managed to do both, until in the beginning of 2018 circumstance made it necessary to slow down and re-evaluate our focus .

At this point we set together and talked about our situation, the progress of both our projects and what they meant for us. After reflecting on this and discussing it with our mentor, we then decided to focus on the development of volo.

Volo turned out as a successful project through which we learned a lot (check out more details about the project here). We had already made arrangements to show it in an exhibition starting in February 2019 in Amsterdam, which focused on mobility options for the future. However, the prototype wasn't there any more after the summer holidays 2018. Unfortunately, we didn't have neither the time nor the resources to rebuild and thus had to, with great regret, cancel the collaboration with the museum.

Nevertheless, this has been a project which made me grow and learn more than I would have expected. The high requirements of the expositions in terms of functionality, aesthetics and communication made us grow beyond what we could have done only in the academic context.

The Personal Leadership course, which is part of the Honors Academy program, helped me to recognize my strengths and directly apply them to this project.

While Tobias was in charge of the technical realization of the prototypes, I took over the responsibility of the organization and time management – within the team and with other stakeholders, essentially steering the decision making process and communicating with our partners. This collaboration, supported by the help of Benno Thijs, has shown to be very successful and enriching for all of us.

I believe that this essentially contributed to bringing volo so far. By identifying our strengths and actively bringing them together, we achieved a result which would otherwise not been possible. I'm very happy with the outcomes and thankful for all the great experiences I could gain through this project!