[staff-physics-and-astronomy-HL-UHD-UD] Working with Mech.Eng. students for their BSc project? - Autumn semester

Martin, N.S. (Nicolas) n.s.martin at vu.nl
Mon Jun 8 13:32:15 CEST 2026 

Dear colleagues of Physics and Astronomy,

Some of you may remember the short presentation Joris and I did around November last year about finding BSc assignment projects for our Mechanical Engineering students. Some of you may be supervising one of our students right now.
A fair amount of them would like to do their project in the Autumn semester. There has usually been a handful of them and projects could be arranged by word-of-mouth, but this year we have 20 of them so I would like to do this a little more formally. Some assignments, will be offered by UT, some will be arranged with companies (external). I estimate that if we could place 8 students at VU (primarily in Physics, but feel free to forward this to colleagues in other departments you think might be interested) with 4 duo assignments, that would be ideal.
If this is new to you, here is a quick summary:

  *   To complete their BSc, students in Mechanical Engineering need to carry out a project in the spring semester (2 last blocks).
  *   The type of projects range from theoretical models (CFD, FEA,…) to designing and building experimental setup, or software programming to automate data acquisition and/or interpretation. Feel free to discuss with me if you have doubts.
  *   General timeline: see below.
Submitting a project:
You can fill in the attached Word file and I will compile things together. There is still time to think about it or fully define the project as I will close the collection at the end of August before the academic year starts.
Since some projects here at Physics may constitute or be tied to sensitive IP, we sometimes get questions about confidentiality and NDA’s. I hope the attached document on IP answers your questions/concerns.

If you still have questions, feel free to ask by e-mail or find me for a quick discussion (usually in 3B-131).

Autumn 2026


Academic year week
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Starts on
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End on
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UT
Module 9
Module 10

UT-VU
Block 13
Block 14
Winter break
Block 15

BSc assignment phase
Initial phase
Discovery phase
Execution phase

Final phase

Milestones
Research Proposal
Draft paper
Research paper
go/no-go
Conference
Expected workload
~3.5 EC
12 EC
~100 hours or 2.5 full time weeks
~340 hours or 8.5 full time weeks



Kind regards,

M.Eng. Nicolas Martin (he/him)
Lecturer, department of Physics and Astronomy
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

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Working days: Mo, Tu, --, Th, Fr | T +31 20 59 81137| @vu.nl<mailto:@vu.nl>
Mailing address: De Boelelaan 1100, 1081 HZ Amsterdam
Visiting address: VO-3B-131 | E-mail disclaimer<https://vu.nl/en/about-vu/more-about/about-the-vu-website> | www.vu.nl<https://vu.nl/en/>

 [LinkedIn] <https://www.linkedin.com/school/5570/admin/>     [Twitter] <http://twitter.com/#!/vuamsterdam>     [YouTube] <https://www.youtube.com/user/vrijeuniversiteit>


From: _list_senior-staff-physics-and-astronomy-bounces <senior-staff-physics-and-astronomy-bounces at listserver.vu.nl> On Behalf Of Martin, N.S. (Nicolas)
Sent: Thursday, 4 December 2025 16:06
To: _list_senior-staff-physics-and-astronomy <senior-staff-physics-and-astronomy at listserver.vu.nl>
Subject: [staff-physics-and-astronomy-HL-UHD-UD] Working with Mech.Eng. students for their BSc project?

Dear colleagues of Physics and Astronomy,

This e-mail is complementary to yesterday’s presentation at the staff meeting. If you were not present, here is a quick summary:

  *   To complete their BSc, students in Mechanical Engineering need to carry out a project in the spring semester (2 last blocks).
  *   These projects can be external, but a lot of them are usually in research groups, sometimes at UT but also at VU. The type of projects range from theoretical models (CFD, FEA,…) to designing and building experimental setup, or software programming to automate data acquisition and/or interpretation.
  *   A new element that will be introduced this week is an assignment/project market here at VU. Our students can pick assignments here at VU or at UT and there was previously a combined market at UT, which many VU colleagues could not attend, resulting in low demand for VU projects. This year, there will be 2 markets, students as well as VU potential supervisors will be invited to both, but in practice, we think most will focus on the VU one. With this, we hope to create good connections from the start between VU supervisors and ME students and ultimately have more students chose  project that you propose.
  *   General timeline: potential supervisors submit projects between now and January, market on Feb 3rd, projects allocated on 12th , literature review and definition of research from this point until mid-April, “full-time” work from students (4.5 day/week) from mid-April to end of June (12 weeks).
Submitting a project:
If you already have UT credentials you can fill in the application form directly https://forms.office.com/e/bGtUvTTbRe
If not you can fill in the attached Word file and we will fill in the UT form on your behalf.
Since some projects here at Physics may constitute or be tied to sensitive IP, we sometimes get questions about confidentiality and NDA’s. I hope the attached document on IP answers your questions/concerns.

If you still have questions, feel free to ask by e-mail or find me for a quick discussion (usually in 3B-131), I will do my best to find an answer quickly even if I am new in this coordinating role. I do have experience supervising such assignments and a good notion of what skills and knowledge our ME students (should) have.

Kind regards,

M.Eng. Nicolas Martin (he/him)
Lecturer, department of Physics and Astronomy
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

[Logo]

Working days: Mo, Tu, --, Th, Fr | T +31 20 59 81137| @vu.nl<mailto:@vu.nl>
Mailing address: De Boelelaan 1100, 1081 HZ Amsterdam
Visiting address: VO-3B-131 | E-mail disclaimer<https://vu.nl/en/about-vu/more-about/about-the-vu-website> | www.vu.nl<https://vu.nl/en/>

  [LinkedIn] <https://www.linkedin.com/school/5570/admin/>     [Twitter] <http://twitter.com/#!/vuamsterdam>     [YouTube] <https://www.youtube.com/user/vrijeuniversiteit>


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