“The world needs engineers, now more than ever!”

Built, not bought

Most of the pupils listened intently and asked pertinent questions, including about the impact of all those wind turbines on marine life and birds. Basic knowledge of chemistry also bubbled to the surface quite readily when Maarten Messagie asked about the chemical reactions that occur during the combustion of fossil fuels. Iris Van den Bossche, a chemistry teacher at the Sint-Jozef Institute in Ternat, quietly breathed a sigh of relief. 
But most eyes really lit up during the demonstration of the Formula Student racing car. This electric racing car was designed and built by a team of forty VUB students from the engineering, electronics, computer science, economics and communication programmes. The team took part in international university competitions in Italy and England this year; next year, Germany and Switzerland are on the agenda. The racing car combines electric propulsion with innovative materials and a ‘built, not bought’ principle: the motor and batteries were purchased, but the students designed and built everything else themselves using 3D printers, laser cutters and CNC machines. The car’s cost: just under 90,000 euros, a large part of which was sponsored

Good support

Matthias Van Hauwe and Yorick Hendrickx from the VUB Racing team are happy to hear that. Matthias graduated last year with a degree in industrial engineering, and Yorick this year. They reassure prospective engineering students: at the VUB, they won’t be left to fend for themselves. Matthias himself came from a background with four hours of maths a week and had failed the placement test. “Yet I graduated with first-class honours. So don’t be put off. Class sizes have grown slightly at the VUB in recent years, but students are still well looked after. In the basic maths module, for example, you have to complete exercises every week. These are marked, which is an incentive to keep up with the material. The same applies to the mid-year chemistry exam and the weekly assignments you’re given in other subjects. That’s the beauty of studying at the VUB: you have to do the work yourself, of course, but you can count on support.”

Victor Ver Eecke from GO! Atheneum Etterbeek also feels more confident about his plans to study engineering. What he remembers most is the visit to the Green Energy Park’s Multi-energy Living Lab. This lab is a test environment where different forms of energy – electricity, heat, battery storage, etc. – are tested simultaneously and in combination with one another in a realistic setting. Victor was particularly fascinated by the Smart Digital Table Top. This is an interactive simulator that depicts the Zellik Research Park, of which Green Energy Park is a part, on a scale model. “You can use it to visualise the site’s energy flows and compare energy scenarios, so that they can work together intelligently. I do the same at home, with our home network. Using an algorithm, I track how much energy our solar panels generate and how much energy we consume. That way, we know when it’s best to charge the car or prevent peak usage from getting too high. In the future, I can certainly see myself working with this kind of network architecture.”