Track Ambassador
track ambassador embrace

Stan Stelten
Personal Purpose Track
profile
Hi, I’m Stan Stelten, from Sittard, The Netherlands. And because I am from the south of the country, the province of Limburg I am also fluent in the local Dutch dialect Limburgs. Even though I speak this at home I use Dutch and English a lot more when I’m in Eindhoven or speak to international people. In Limburg I grew up in an ordinary city neighbourhood with a lots of families and kids my age to play with. Of course, being in the Netherlands there were football fields nearby.
With Fontys being sort of the closest, but for sure best college in the area I chose to go here. Because of my interests I started following the bachelor of Electrical Engineering.
Choosing a minor wasn’t made very hard for me either. Through my fellow students as well as through some of my engineering teachers I heard about the minor program Embrace TEC. They all had the advice to join this minor, hearing it from so many people I ended up joining. Within the Embrace TEC minor I chose to go for the Personal Purpose track because this track has a clear starting- and endpoint. This is something that is very important for me as I am generally not the person that has to set endpoints for projects.
expectations
This week we get to know the track ambassador even better and see what expectations they have of the minor and the track.
project
Since the project I’m working on, Sensai Punching Bag, is a continuation of another project there was already a lot done, mostly a prototype was already made but it has some flaws and it could use some improvements. I’m doing this project with another track member we are continuously brainstorming on what to do next.
So in the first week we mostly came up with a plan on what we wanted to achieve and came up with some ideas we wanted to implement.
In the second week we started to ask around (mostly in the purpose track) what other people would like to see added to the project.

My goals is to create a more sophisticated prototype with more functions that are wanted by the target group. This includes features like making noises when someone punches it, make two of them so you can hold a competition against friends. And maybe come up with styling ideas to get more attention.
What I enjoyed the most so far is seeing the different ideas and angles that everyone has on the same subject.
What I will try to do differently in the upcoming weeks is to try to take on another point of view and see new opportunities
deepdive: what
For me the “what” is an easy choice. I’ve always been keen on working with electronics, whether it is programming or fiddling with electronics. So for my what I wanted to create something that includes electronics. When I got the chance to work with a project that needed some improvement on the electronic and coding department I jumped right onboard. So for the first two cycles of the Purpose Track I work on improving the Sensai Punching bag to make it more interactive and interesting to play with. So my what is A Punching bag made out of recycled materials. But after two cycles and asking around I noticed that the project was getting out of hand for one person so I decided to change to something else. Because I am also interested in film props, these are iconic items used by actors, I am making a guide on how to get started with making or replicating a film prop with different techniques.
deepdive: who
My “Who” is a very specific target group: creative/technical people who are fanatic about a movie franchise and want to have and create an iconic item from said franchise. I have chosen this target group because I belong to this group, and I struggled a bit with the beginnings. Therefore, I wanted to help this group of people start realising their dreams. By making something that is clear and understandable I hope to create an easy way to get people to enjoy the thing they like and improve their fan experience.
deepdive: why
My reason for starting this project and bringing my idea to life is to help enthusiastic people start building towards their dreams to recreate movie props.
Why is this necessary you ask? Because you have to dig deep to find any good information on how to begin and what to do. With my guidebook I want to make it a lot easier to get information on specific techniques and materials. Include the fundamentals and do a little deep-dive into certain techniques. This all to get the general knowledge for the operations needed to start working on prop replication without having to do a lot of research. I also have been working on my prop replications and was scared of using certain techniques and had a lack of knowledge of different usable techniques to make processes easier. So the general reason behind this is to make general knowledge about prop replication processes more accessible to everyone.
reaction & reflection
coming soon!