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About the Minor

The BeCreative Minor is a project based Minor, in which the student will work together in a group. Before the students are given the freedom to work on their project, the students have to participate in the bootcamp called “Blikwisseling”, which is organized during the first week of the minor. In this bootcamp, the students are provided with the necessary tools, skills and theory in order to approach their projects with a creative mindset. In the second week, the students will be provided with the necessary information about their project, by meeting their client and project coach. Also, interesting parties/stakeholders will be invited to give inspiring lectures. Below you can see the overall planning of the Minor.

In order to structure the Minor and the learning process of the students, a feedback session (FS) will be held every three weeks and a midterm demo is organized half way through the semester. The final presentation of the Minor will be held together with the Engineering in Practice Symposium.

Structure of the Minor

First week: Creativity Bootcamp designed by Peter Torpey from the Media Lab of MIT Boston. You will develop new skills, learn creative tools, and push your boundaries. We focus on combining creativity and technology. This is an amazing and intense experience, including evening program, so you will stay overnight in a B&B in Eindhoven. The bootcamp program includes: an excursion, a hackathon, and an exhibition.

Next 19 weeks: Inspired by the bootcamp and your personal goals, you choose a challenging engineering project. The goal of this project is to develop together with your team mates an innovative prototype, not yet available on the market. You will receive intensive support from stakeholders (companies) and (technical) experts. The project coaches will guide you and your team with the design and realization of the prototype. Besides that, the BeCreative team members organize workshops and presentations to share their expertise and knowledge with the other team members. A great informal way to help each other growing in the field of technologies and skills.

Learning goals

Throughout the minor the focus will be on three main learning objectives.

Focus on continuous learning, talent and feedback

  • Improvement of (technical) level;
  • Approach;
  • Working attitude;
  • Social communicative attitude;
  • Professional attitude;
  • Giving and receiving feedback;
  • Reflection;
  • Presentation skills.

Learning in context

  • Technical level;
  • Quality;
  • Integration soft skills and hard skills;
  • The problem environment;
  • The problem definition;
  • Approach research framework;
  • Design methods;
  • Results outcomes
  • Conclusions and recommendation
  • Summarize
  • Readability of report.

Sharing knowledge

  • Preparation;
  • Knowledge level;
  • Wide interest area;
  • Quality;
  • Learning goals;
  • Presentation and communication;
  • Questions;
  • Documentation.

Additional Information

This Minor is fully project based, so no exams. In this way you can focus (without distractions) on your engineering design challenge. The goal of your project is to develop an innovative product or service that is not yet available on the market.

Our projects are defined by technology companies (such as Philips and Atos) or technological institutes (such as TU-Eindhoven and MIT Boston) or creative organizations (such as Glow and Rock Academy). Alternatively, you can come up with you own project; after review and acceptance it can become a BeCreative project.

To finalize the BeCreative minor, each project team presents its prototype at the Engineering in Practice Symposium. In addition to the group deliverables, an individual interview with the project coaches is also part of the final assessment. After successful completion, you will be rewarded 30 ECTS.

We support you to become the creative engineer of the future!

Examination

The following requirements must be met in order to qualify for the final assessment:

  1. The student has written and delivered their Personal Development Plan with specific goals in the first weeks;
  2. The student has an overall positive chart, meaning that he/she showed an overall growth throughout the minor. An overall positive chart means:
    • The student has received neutral or positive in at least 3 out of 5 feedback sessions;
    • The student did not receive negative in the first two feedback sessions.
  3. The student has been present at all of the feedback moments;
  4. The student has shared knowledge among their peers and documented this in his portfolio;
  5. The student has kept a blog about the project and personal progress;
  6. The student has written a final document containing the following:
    • Personal Development Plan (this plan can be slightly different to the first version);
    • Collection of processed peer- and teacher feedback (as found in the feedback document);
    • Critical self-reflection on the whole project.
    • Group report about the project.
    • Portfolio (based on blog)
  7. The student has made a video about their project (1 video per group);
  8. Teacher should approve the final documents as mentioned in 5.

Since the Minor is focused on feedback and not on grades, the student will receive either a 30 ECTS or none (sufficient or insufficient).