Engineering Student of the Year election

When:

7 May 2014

14:00 Hour - 18:00 Hour

Event organizer:KIVI Students Twente

Pricing Ledenprijs:Free

Enschede - Tom Lankhorst (undergraduate student Biomedical Engineering) was elected Engineering Student of the Year of the University of Twente (UT) on Wednesday afternoon, 7 May 2014. The Twente student section of the national engineering association Royal Institute of Engineers (KIVI) organised the second edition of this annual election on Wednesday. Tom received the prestigious award, consisting of a certificate and a cash prize of €750, from presenter Peter Timmerman and KIVI Students president Ton Nguyen. Second place went to Technical Informaticist Bram Leenders (he won a balloon flight over Enschede). Rolf Postma (Chemical Engineering) won the third prize (indoor skydiving).

All students at the University of Twente could apply for this election over the past months. It was also possible for anyone to nominate a student. A selection of 12 students (from 12 different technical study programmes) was then made on the basis of motivation letters that the nominees had to send in. These finalists competed last Wednesday for the title "Engineering Student of the Year Apart from the aforementioned Tom, Bram and Rolf, these were Yorick Birkhölzer (on behalf of the Advanced Technology programme), Evthimios Karaliolios (Civil Engineering), Stefan Witkamp (Creative Technology), Robin Buijs (Electrical Engineering), Ruben Borgonjen (Industrial Design), Ralph van Zwieten (Technical Business Administration), Joris van Dijk (Technical Medicine), Jaap Nieland (Technical Physics) and Joni Terpstra (Mechanical Engineering).

The election was divided into three rounds. The first round was a 'technical IQ test.' This revealed the technical insight, numeracy, language skills and memory of the finalists in around 50 questions. Some of them scored astonishingly high on this test. However, there were also true technical geniuses in the audience - the spectators could hand in their answers to the test to the organisation and the highest scores from the audience were awarded great prizes. In the end, former UT student Timco Visser won a 50 euro gift voucher and Kevin Hofhuis (who was also nominated for the election on behalf of the Advanced Technology programme but ultimately just missed out on a place in the finals) received a free KIVI membership. Among the candidates, Bram Leenders was gloriously in the lead after the first round, closely followed by Stefan Witkamp.

After a short break, the candidates had to take an analytical aptitude test in the second round. In a series of spectacular experiments, interspersed with insight questions, explanations for various natural scientific (and even social) phenomena were sought. The so-called 'fire tornado' - which caused a furore on the TV programme De Wereld Draait Door just a week before the election - was also present in these experiments, while many of the candidates will actually think back with chills to the nitrogen cloud that made the room unsafe for a while. An experiment in which all attendees had to guess the number of bacon in a candy jar proved the 'law of large numbers': when a significant group of people are independently asked to make an estimate, the average of all answers turns out to match the actual number. At the end of the second round, the explanatory power of Rolf Postma and Robin Buijs proved to be almost perfect: they scored by far the most points of all candidates in this round.

In the third and decisive round, it was finally time for the finalists to get off their seats. In three-minute presentations, each of them had the task of convincing the audience and the jury that they really deserved the title 'Engineering Student of 2014' after all. The professional jury consisted of Micaela dos Ramos (director of KIVI), Miriam Luizink (technical-commercial director of the MESA+ Institute for Nanotechnology), Ton Beune (programme director Techniekpact Twente) and Jaap Beernink (chairman Technology Kring Twente). After it was clear to everyone that all the finalists actually deserved the title, the jury nevertheless went into deliberations to designate the winner of this round. The spectators were also asked to make their favourite known. This led to the presentations by Ruben Borgonjen, Yorick Birkhölzer and Tom Lankhorst being rewarded with the highest number of points.

After everyone had recovered from the impressive presentations, it was time to take stock. Tom Lankhorst eventually proved to have amassed the most points in total and received the cheque for 750 euros. Bram Leenders and Rolf Postma (numbers two and three respectively) came up just short, but the difference was minimal. During the closing drinks in the Diepzat bar, everyone agreed that all finalists can be described as exceptional engineering students and that we will hear a lot from them in the future. Consequently, all finalists received a free KIVI membership to take home.

For more information and a complete photo report of this event, click on the link below:

Description

On Wednesday 7 May 2014, KIVI Students Twente is organising the second edition of the Engineering Student of the Year Election!

Register to compete for the title and grand prize of 750 Euros! You can nominate not only yourself, but also others. The nomination round will be followed by a voting round to choose one candidate per study. These candidates will take part in the Election in May.

Among the entries, 5 VVV vouchers worth 20 Euros will be raffled off.

The public, together with the jury, will decide who the eventual winner will be.
In the jury include Micaela dos Ramos, director KIVI and Miriam Luizink, technical-commercial director MESA+.

Come and watch this spectacle and help decide who will be the Engineering Student of the Year 2014!!!

13:30 -14:00 Walk-in
14:00 -14:10 Opening
14:10 -14:50 Round 1
14:50 -15:10 Pause
15:15 -16:00 Round 2
16:00 -16:15 Intermezzo
16:20 -16:40 Round 3
16:55 -17:10 Results and presentation
17:10 -17:15 Word of thanks
17:15 -18:00 Drinks