On the 24th of February, everybody gathered at the library in order to travel to the far south of the Netherlands, Eindhoven. The company ProDrive was nice enough to invite us over for a presentation, lunch, and a company tour. After arriving in Eindhoven, we were immediately greeted by one of the recent graduates of our Department, Daan van der Lans. A quick temperature reading and everybody was ready to enter the main building of ProDrive.
Along with a nice cup of coffee, we first got an interesting presentation about the sales numbers, business model, and the future of Prodrive. This was all done by the very enthusiastic HR manager Ruud de Vries. Having taken in all the statistics, it was time for a small lunch break. Then we got ready for the second presentation by Moos Senden here. A technical presentation followed diving deeper into the design decisions of the Proton Motion Stage, a recently developed product. This presentation showed a lot of similarities with the course Mechatronic System Design, as strategies like the Sky-Hook principle were used.
Finally, my favorite part of the day had begun, the company tour. In groups of four people, we were allowed to walk around in the fabrication halls and see all of the machines in action. And even more importantly we were allowed to ask questions about everything. Whether you got the response you wanted, depended on whether it was classified or not 😉.
All in all the company tour was really nice and I can only say that my interest in ProDrive has grown. Having initially forgotten to sign up for the trip, I am quite happy I was still able to join. ProDrive truly seems to have a good working atmosphere and the people there are very driven. Even if you did not join the trip, I can recommend getting in contact with them. They are doing a lot of recruiting and have a lot of work available, research assignments, or possibilities for internships.
– Daniël Blommestein