Sunday, February 17, 2013

ROMAZO MINI SYMPOSIUM

For the second time we organized a mini symposium in cooperation with Romazo our current partner for the bucky lab. The mini symposium was held in the wonderful berlage hall in the facutly of architecture of the TU Delft. With a noticible smaller group of 20 students in this midterm semester it was still quite busy during the day.

The mini symposium is our way of getting a good start into the semester and create a good knowldge background about the topic of sun shading and get in contact with the experts of the industry.

After a warm welcome from Dr. Bucky Lab and Martin Straver, the head of the branche organisation Romazo for the dutch sun shading industry, Prof. Hermans / Leiden University started with the basics of physics and some interestingexperiments about the infrared light spectrum. Wouter Beck from Hunter Douglas talked about external sunshadings and showed a nice video about some current projects.

Evert Bos from Verosol explained the principles about internal shades and we all loved the small battle that always starts when the experts meet and discuss the pro and cons of internal and external shades.

A good building should provide both to create the best perfomance and comfort ! So no reason to argue ...!

Bertus van den Brink from Somfy talked about electronical controlling systems for all kinds of shadings and other functions in the building. Its ofthen these invisible parts that make a building smart and operate efficiently. Most important quote: The user interaction is the most important point, next to all the automatism programmed into a system, if the user cant change it by its own demands the system will be not accepted!

On Romazos invitation we had a very yummy lunch break and already lots of topics to be dicussed.

Klaas Jan Postma from Swela explained the facts about sunshading fabrics and the students already challenged him with some questions whats possible or not on a loom. Marcel Bilow / Dr. Bucky Lab ended the session with an short overview of the last bucky lab projects, the topic of this semster and talked about user interference that might become a good start to think about an innovative concept within this semester.
Quote to note: You better choose materials smartly instead of using smart materials to create a smart construction !

At the end of the day Martin Straver handed over a nice gift for the bucky lab: A mobile industrial sewing machine with jumper foot, painted blue - full metal and build to last forever ! Thank you very muchfor this wonderful piece of machinery, compared to the one we already have this beast is the offroad racing truck in terms of sewing machines. Bram Floris Plattel from Guillaume Janssen also offered a used machine so all of us will be able to get their hands on a machine.Next to this Jouke Loff from Dickson and Klaas Jan Postma from Svela offered all of their products to be available for the students, and Dr, Bucky Lab already claimed an smart phone controlled system from Somfy...man, that would be so cool if we are able to build something that can be controlled with an Iphone ...

The borrel / drink at the end of the day leaves nothing more than happy faces and vivid discussions about the new semester and the products that were showcased from the Romazo members.

Thanks to Romazo for this informative and perfect day !