Robbe Nagel
Industrial Design student at Technische Universiteit Eindhoven
Specializing in physical experience design, urban product innovation, & entrepreneurship
21-07-2000
's-Hertogenbosch
..., so long story short.
This chapter covers my main learning experiences throughout my student years and my plans for the future.
Student
Technology & realization
Various courses have contributed to the growth of my technical abilities, most notably Creative Programming, Aesthetics of Interaction, Intelligent Interactive Products, and Project 2, as well as my experience at team HART. They offered me methodologies to go from idea to prototype and exposed me to the options and processes of making a prototype. I now feel comfortable working with Blender, Arduino, Processing, sensors, 3D printers, and other software programs.
During my FBP, I have put T&R as one of my priorities. This decision paid off. Applying all the tools and methods, my FBP prototype turned out to be the best of my student career. My favorite photograph displaying growth in T&R is from my FBP prototype next to my CityScapes prototype. One was the first of my studies, the other the last. As they both have similar workings, it becomes clear how my realization skills have improved.
During the three years of studying, I have learned about and stayed up-to-date with several fields of technology, including AI, construction, mobility, consumer electronics, mixed realities, social media, agriculture, and space exploration.
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Business & entrepreneurship
Although I have followed numerous courses about business and entrepreneurship, especially the Technology Entrepreneurship USE track, most of my growth is thanks to my internship and extracurricular work. The courses gave me the necessary backbone, but by actually practicing entrepreneurship in the field did I learn hands-on.
Most importantly, I learned about pitching, business structures, steps to be made during founding a company, how to involve other companies in your practices, and the responsibilities that come with working in a team. I have also experienced that entrepreneurship is filled with obstacles, challenges, and refusals. This makes me better prepared for a future where I might bump into similar difficulties.
I have applied what I learned in B&E during my FBP by involving several companies during and after my developments and by working out suitable business models for the generative art project.
Since February 2022, I have been in the process of founding a new startup called Spaces, thus re-experiencing and applying this expertise area.
Creativity & aesthetics
This expertise area has challenged me throughout my studies to think unconventionally and to push for materialistic quality. This prepared me for my eventual direction into experience design - a design practice that relies heavily on these skills.
Courses such as From Idea to Design, Exploratory Sketching and Project 1 Design taught me how to explore ideas as well as supporting skills in how to express those ideas (sketching, Illustrator, Blender, material use).
Creativity and aesthetics can be hard to approach methodologically. At some point, I have to go for gut feelings about what could be right. A mindset that was applied during my FBP. This gut feeling has strengthened over time, thanks to inspiration from Dieter Rams, Daan Roosegaarde, and Japanese design, and will have to keep developing over many years to come.
User & society
For me, this expertise area is about observing society as a whole and the roles/behaviors of individuals within those societies. It is about being open-minded and respectful towards other cultures and ways of living.
The courses Aesthetics of Interaction, User-centered Design, Design <> research, and Socio-cultural Sensitivity taught me how to define user target groups, how to design from the perspectives of the user, and how to do user research.
This expertise area got to shine during my FBP due to the societal context and environment it focused on (public spaces) and the user testing with a number of people that I had not reached before (~50).
Math, data & computing
Admittedly, this expertise area has the most room for improvement. However, the courses Data analytics and Intelligent Interactive Products (IIP) have given me the tools and knowledge to collect, analyze, and use data for the creation of new knowledge or to be applied in making products intelligent.
I had made an attempt to incorporate some of the machine learning techniques provided by the IIP course into my FBP prototype but unfortunately failed to do so (partly because of time restraints). In a future iteration of the prototype, I am determined to use machine learning, as it is a wonderful tool to make products more expressive and adaptive.
Future
When I graduate, I have decided to start paving my own path after eighteen years of continuous education. Not because I dislike what my education has offered me. Far from it. These last three years have given me the most stimulating environment imaginable for me to develop myself as a person and as a professional designer. But now I have a solid vision for what I want to achieve, the people around me to make that happen, and a set of skills that will help me along the way. I am looking forward to how much I can learn in my own way, and I am prepared to fail and get back up again.
More concretely, I plan on continuing the development of the Interactive Generative Art project (possibly in collaboration with other companies). Also, the process of founding Spaces goes on, for which there are currently already some opportunities being worked on. If these personal projects take more time than expected, then I am happy to reach out to several companies that I am already acquainted with for a possible job.
If I get to dream about what a more distant future for me looks like - I imagine myself as the founder or a prevalent employee of a company that is re-imagining what our city environments can do for us and how we can live in them. I wish it can do so systemically and profitably in order to provide for as many cities and people as possible. My day-to-day work would consist of, for the most part, meeting with different teams of talented people. Here, my main role is to embody the vision as we discuss and brainstorm about the content of the work being done.
But until then, my future is uncertain. It is in uncertainty, though, where most of the opportunities can be found. No matter the hardships, I am excited about what my future will bring. Because I get to do that which I love. What more could I want?