This semester I needed to balance out my development of the expertise areas. Therefore I chose the course ‘Designing Tangible Business Models’ by Camilla van den Boom. Goal of this course was to design a business model for the TU/e campus envisioned in 2020 and build a prototype that shows this business model in a physical way.

Next to the knowledge and experience of how to use the business model canvas, my attitude towards ‘business’ changed completely. Where I first saw business as the dirty way of making money, I started to see it as the mechanism of creating value for all stakeholders, which is vital for introducing a product or service to the world.

The course ‘Creative Electronics’ helped me to overcome my insecurity of using electronics in my prototypes. It practiced my analytical thinking skills, learned me how to calculate, solder and document electronic circuits and thereby enables me to discuss electronics with non-designers using the right vocabulary. This course showed me the joy (and frustrations) of hands on exploring electronics. I love the elegance of functionalities of electronic components and I guess I just love the look and smell of them.

Further this semester was the semester of tough teamwork. The business model team as well as the design project team did not run smoothly at times due to a combination of factors. Main learning outcomes were to communicate my expectations very clearly, and the realization that I can be a team leader, as many times the members of the project team, as well as the assigned team leader came to me for guidance of the project.

Lastly I believe that my overall understanding of designing grew significantly this semester under guidance of Berry Eggen. As he was my project coach, he shared as much of his knowledge and enthusiasm with me as I could take at that moment. His coaching broadened my view on design and studying industrial design and helped me to find my interest in light and sound design.

This semester was the semester of exploring leadership: I gave myself the challenge to explore my capabilities as a team leader in my design project. It became clear to me that I naturally have a clear vision on the structure and direction of a design process and thereby gave the team members guidance step by step. But I lacked to act as a leader when it came to decision making and presenting myself as a team leader.

Next to that I made a major development in understanding design processes. As me and my team members came from different educational backgrounds, we had different design approaches and were used to different design processes. To explain the explorative design approach and iterative design process to the others, I needed to fully understand what I was doing and why. This gave me a critical attitude towards my own design approach and a broader perspective on other design approaches (research based) and processes (linear design processes).

The difference in education between the team members also had another great learning outcome: seeing the importance of high quality visual presentation. As one of the team members was educated at an art school, he was used to present everything he did in a convincing and well-designed visual language. This attention to detail in the appearance every design activity took the overall quality of the design process to a higher level.

The USE learning line of ‘The Secret Life of Light’ deepened my knowledge of human perception and the role that light plays in human functioning. It sparked my interest in light as a design material even more and therefore gained a spot in my vision on design.

Halfway my B2.2 I took part in the ‘kandi-trajectory’ but, at that time a bit unexpected to me, was not chosen to take a place in the board. Instead, I went my own way looking for projects I would like to do, and asked Philip Ross whether I could proceed working on the Intermedia project for GLOW 2016. Paper wise it was most convenient to start an internship at the Intelligent Lighting Institute (ILI TU/e) for which Philp worked, so I could support him in his job to realize several light installations for the GLOW NEXT route at the TU/e campus that year.

During the internship I took a leading role in the design and realisation of ‘Intermedia’. This installation was built by a team of 10 students from different faculties. To guide them all and collaborate with the external partners, I needed to understand and keep track of the whole design process up to the smallest details. This definitely boosted my organisation skills. I loved to work with this broad variety of people and I learned how to address all of them properly, to improvise and to make decisions fast.

“Randi performed very well in circumstances of high pressure. Glow is a high profile event, and during the realisation process, she had to deal with many unexpected setbacks. She stayed focused and constructive, minding not only her own work but also that of others.” – Philip Ross, company coach, project leader Glow Science

My role in the design team of A.R.T. was completely different: a helping hand throughout the project. I took on fragments of the design process where I had no (or hardly any) experience with and were part of my learning goals concerning technology and realization: building a “GLOW-proof” electronic circuit and programming a segment of the digital infrastructure to link the sensor output to the software.

The whole team together performed the process experimented with the precise light and sound setup. I was grateful that I was part of a professional design team with high quality standards and thereby could get a complete view on a future work field. Here I saw the experimental design approach learned in my B2.2 project, where decision making is also based on intuition, brought into practice. By experimenting with light, I developed a critical aesthetic eye on (architectural) lighting design. As this was the first time I designed audiovisual installations, I noticed I was lacking knowledge about acoustics and sound design, which had a great influence of the choice of upcoming courses.

The most important goal of my final bachelor was to study again in a healthy way. I constantly had to watch myself to work in a balanced way: striving for a satisfying project outcome while preserving the time and energy to socialize, sport, make music and recharge from studying was my ultimate goal. Although I definitively had my ups and downs, I managed to fulfill this design project in a way that I am overall content with.

Another important learning goal was to deliver a working demonstrator. Also this I accomplished. I rediscovered the joy I have in working with electronics, and I am less afraid of programming. Next to that outdid myself in bringing all the components of the project together at the final demo day. When I began this project I did not think I would be able to manage a project of such quality.

Lastly I planned to incorporate my sketching skills as developed in the course exploratory sketching, in my project. In doing so, the sketches became an important part of my visual identity.