The Dutch Steam Engine Museum is located in the former Vier Noorder Koggen steam pumping station in Medemblik
The Dutch Steam Engine Museum(www.stoommachinemuseum.nl) has advanced plans to use e-learning to maintain knowledge of steam engine operation. That knowledge is currently held by volunteers, but the museum's future partly depends on training successors. Virtual instructional videos can capture the knowledge needed for the future.
In addition, they offer aspiring stokers and machinists the opportunity to be trained remotely. This not only saves time, but is also a safe way of instruction in difficult times like now, when a virus is swirling around.
The prize money of €2,000 will be used to visualise the operation of one steam engine through e-learning. This will set the stage for an action to provide all the major steam engines in the collection with such an e-learning tool. In this way, the necessary knowledge and experience will be maintained.
The jury was impressed by the museum's plans. In awarding the prize, the deciding factor was that in this way, using state-of-the-art techniques, the museum is making a major contribution to keeping important elements of the history of engineering alive in the Netherlands.
NB: Due to corona issues, the presentation of the Willem Wolff Prize 2019 only take place soon. This will take place on 9 September at the winner's location: the Industrial Museum Zeeland in Sas van Gent.
The prize was awarded for their exhibition on timepieces. This exhibition in itself is worth a visit to this museum: https://industrieelmuseumzeeland.nl/evenementen/2021-06-27/prikklokken.
Unfortunately, no Willem Wolff Prize award could be realised in 2020.
About the Willem Wolff Prize
The History of Technology Department of the Royal Institute of Engineers (KIVI) and the Foundation for the History of Technology together with the Wolff family established the Willem Wolff Prize in 2011. The prize consists of €2,000 and a plaque and serves to support and encourage smaller museums and local initiatives in the field of engineering history.
The prize is named after mechanical engineer Willem Wolff (1921-2009), who during his lifetime was, among other things, chairman of the board of Akzo Nederland, president of the Royal Institute of Engineers (1984-1989) and (co-)founder and first chairman of the Foundation for the History of Technology (1988-1994). Under the motto "One must know the past to have a view of the future", he has always held engineering history in particular high regard.
Click here for more information about the Willem Wolff Award
