Dear Vonk reader, Maybe the holiday has already started for you or you have to do a few resits. Nevertheless, I hope you are enjoying the beautiful weather together with the slowly loosening of the measures against corona. While a year ago the summer atmosphere was not here on campus without the BBQs and drinks. At this moment I only miss the summer BBQ of the SCALA, the soothing vocals of Men in Music and the optional hot tub to chill in with your Scintilla swimming trunks. ...

Studying at a (technical) university has both positive and negative sides. On the one hand we can be part of the development of cutting-edge technology. On the other hand, we barely get to touch this state-of-the-art technology as most of our work and research is theoretical. That is why many Electrical Engineerings crave a bit of tinkering. To facilitate this tinkering Scintilla’s SHOCK organised a tinkering contest. Some brave enthousiasts joined the contests and their projects share some common themes. ...

During your high school days you have probably already thought about which direction and what kind of profession you want to practice. The direction is of course very important to know before you choose your Master. However, what is possible after all your education is sometimes a bit unclear. Hence this article to show a few of the possibilities you have after completing your master. Even if you can’t figure out what to do, there’s always the possibility for a gap year to travel/think things over! ...

Every time we open our favorite photo app on our smartphone we are amazed by the fact that Google and Apple are able to accurately identify the people in our photographs. This shows the incredible accuracy that facial recognition of these days has to offer. Recent advances in deep learning, and specifically within the field of convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have significantly improved image recognition and object detection capabilities. Nevertheless, each system has its Achilles heel, and in the case of facial recognition software, a weak spot is one that we may all have encountered at some point ourselves; the difficulty to distinguish between twins. ...

The astounding evolution of wireless communication started back in 1865 [1], when the scientist James C. Maxwell (figure 1) predicted that electric and magnetic fields propagate through space as waves. Figure 1: James C. Maxwell. After Heinrich Hertz experimentally confirmed these expectations, novel applications quickly started making use of this newly discovered world of possibilities. It began with analog wave modulation techniques in the first half of the 19th century and progressed into the use of digital modulation techniques for efficient transfer of information in the current modern era. ...

We interviewed Sabih Gerez, assistant professor of the Computer Architecture of Embedded System (CAES) group. While bachelor students may not be acquainted with him, he is well known under a large portion of the master students Electrical Engineering. All the students who followed the mandatory course System-on-Chip Design have met this busy man. Besides teaching one day (on paper) at the University, Sabih also runs his own company. During this interview we asked him all about combining industry with education. ...