Quartile 1

The course is really well organized, the preliminary design fair and the final event were well coordinated. But also this year, there are some remarks about the overcrowding of the workshop in Vertigo. However, during the course this was better organized. Nevertheless, this is still an important point to keep in mind for the upcoming years. Next year there will be an extra innovation space available in Matrix. It would be a good idea to promote this place among the students to avoid an overcrowded Vertigo. The students who followed this course were in general positive.

Students were positive about the instructions that were given on canvas. It was clear how to find all documents and they helped gaining knowledge about the technical part of the course. Also, the students were very positive about the tutor meetings. They were seen as helpful and contributed to the rest of the course. During the meetings it became clear what the goal of the course was and due to the HWA all the students were obligated to work on the robot. The focus of the course lays on the process and not on the final result, this is made clear during the coaching sessions. However, in the last week of the course there was not that much to discuss during the meeting so students experienced this is a unnecessary meeting. Also the HWA’s were seen a bit otiose this week. After the preliminary design fair some students got more money or a private workspace. However, this was for most of the groups not clear. Therefor, most groups made a simple and “doable” design. If this is better communicated, it will stimulated groups to come up with a better and more innovative design. Also some students had a delay of 10 to 15 seconds during the final event. According to the teacher, this was not due to too many robots on one router. He said that they only used a fraction of the routers capacity. The time delay can come due to the fact that other electronic parts (like the battery) in the robot interfere with the signal. The battery should not be placed on top of/ or near the Arduino. This should be communicated better during the tutoring hours to prevent any delay during the final event.

The idea of building a robot find most of the students fun. However, students from the built environment do not find the assignment very useful. Most of the time they only make the physical robot, but do not learn anything about the technical part of the robot. The skill to make something physical do students of the built environment also learn during other courses within the faculty. The final event was well coordinated, the schedule was clear and the students had enough time in between the two separate elements to prepare. This year there were beamers placed in the steering rooms. By doing this, all the group members could see what was going on in the rescue area. This really motivated the whole group to help with the rescue. For a lot of students it was not clear how the course was graded, this was not mentioned in the study guide. We discussed this with the responsible lecturer, and he will try to make it clearer for next year.

The workload between students of different studies is very dividing. This is because some of the students feel like the project does not involve every study. We discussed this with the responsible course docent, he can see why the students think this, but adds that the character of the students also plays a large role. How students experience the workload is very divers and also depends on how well your group collaborated during the whole course.

The first Architecture project was received as a nice project which teaches a different way of approaching a design.

The project was divided into four faces which were described clearly in the study guide. Each Tuesday and Thursday a tutoring session was scheduled. This was different from other years when the tutoring sessions were only once a week on Thursday. The extra tutoring on Tuesday added a nice possibility for extra information. The assignment was well explained in.
However, some required drawings were unclear to both the student and the tutor.
On Canvas there also were some inspiration lectures every week. These were well received. Some students even asked for more and longer video’s.
There were some comments on feedback from the tutors. Sometimes a tutor gave some very mean feedback that did not. This is something a student has to learn to deal with, because it will happen later when they have finished their study as well. However, sometimes the feedback was not constructive in such a way that the student was not able to learn much from it. A balance has to be found between being harsh and useful. It should not be harsh and useless.

At the end of the project all students had to hand in a poster, a logbook and all the required drawings and give a presentation. This was well organized.

The project has a large workload. The distribution of the workload over the quartile is also an issue. Every two weeks files had to be uploaded on Sunday. This was not ideal, because feedback had to be given on Tuesday. Tutors usually did not comment on the work uploaded, because they had not had time to look at it yet. In addition, tutors sometimes gave feedback on other parts of the design on Tuesday and expected students to have worked on it on Thursday. Not all students were able to keep up with that.
A solution for this was to place the two week deadline on a different day in the week. It was agreed upon that Friday was a good day to replace it to. This will be tried out in quartile 3. A possibility would be to place the deadline on Monday in quartile 4 to see which of the two days is most preferable.
In addition, the workload in the beginning of the project was especially received to be much. This was due to the site analysis which everyone was doing individually. A solution for this is to divide the site analysis between group members and discuss it in a group.

In general the course was interesting and learningfull. A lot of students were satisfied with the project and location of the assignment, because it was nearby and could be organized without extra costs. The tutor hours were nice to work on the project.
An point of attention that was received from the students was that there was a lack of personal feedback in those tutor hours. This lack came from big groups around 25 persons with 2 tutors. The attention of these tutors was not equally divided between all of students. The tutors are not uptodate with the projects of all the students. It appears to look like that the tutors do not look at the deliverables, which have to be handed in each two weeks.

Lectures were interesting for the workshop that followed. The workshops, however, took more time than its given. The references projects were also interesting to give an overview of the possibilities, however not all the references projects were relatable. The site visit was really helpful, because it gives insight of the place and the surroundings.

Only a final presentation was rated, even though every two weeks there was a soft deadline. Also there were more presentations in the quartile which were not stated in the study guide and therefore very different in each group. With only one graded deadline the study load at the end is really high, as expected.

The amount of hours students spent on the course is quite high, more than on every other course. The workshops were taking too much time of the week, especially when the tutors are mentioning that they are not really helpful. Possible solution is to decrease the level of detail.

The course gives insight what to expect in the work field of architecture. It is difficult to buy materials in a group, especially if the group is larger than 5 persons. Overall the course is improving over the years.

A lot has changed since last year. The course has become more efficient. With this change the students now have multiple tutors per project. This allows them to get more insight in other ideas. However some students did not like that they had to explain their project multiple time over. During A-project 1 there where sometimes 3-4 tutors per group. This was due to late rearrangements in the course.
The deadlines every two weeks gave the feeling to some students that they were designing something just to hand in every week and not something they genuinely liked. Next year there won’t be any deadlines and instead the tutors will discuss specific topics each weeks which the students can prepare for. These topics won’t be discussed again.

When the deadlines are removed the group sessions will change as well, because not all students will be in the same faze. The midterm will be kept to make sure everyone is on the same level halfway through the project.

The deadlines every two weeks where not mandatory but served more as a guideline for the students themselves. It was not possible to discuss the deadlines each time due to the lack of time.
The tutor sessions did not always work out well. With one teacher students had to be among the first otherwise they might not be able to get supervision that day. This was because his supervision took a really long time.

Smaller groups would be nice for the students, but this is financially not possible due to the larger amount of tutors required. Also there is enough possibility for supervision but it is not compulsory.

When peoples got a bad grade for their project they had to opportunity to come to a feedback session. However sometimes they did not show up. In fact it stood out the ‘good’ students where the ones who were almost always at the tutoring and feedback sessions.
During the midterm it is unfortunate that not both the tutors are present. However the projects are still discussed by all tutors.

During A-project 2 things are arranged better. During the A-project 1 there was too much emphasis on the reference project. It almost seemed like this got more feedback than the own projects.

Most people found it a good intro project for the B direction. It showed in a nice and interesting way how complex the designing process can be. There was enough space to make it as complex as you wanted, however it was also fine to end with a good simple design.

The studyguide was outdated and gave the possibility to be interpreted differently by the tutors. For example it referred to OASE and asked for certain things the tutors did not find important to do. Therefore, the studyguide was not really followed (only the basics.)

The planning differed between the tutors which was confusing at times. The overall planning was good however. Not really weeks with more or less work, of course there was a bit more pressure around the deadlines which is normal. The spreading of the work was okay and the going into detail part of the project was not too much work compared to the couple of first weeks.

This year the tutors were different from previous years which seemed like it caused for some problems. The tutors all had some different ways of explaining the assignment which caused for confusion. This was visible at the presentations in which groups from different tutors saw each other work. The quality of the work of the groups also seemed different, which was noticed by some students.

The overall feedback given was fine, however the tutors gave attention to different aspects. There were comments given on the work by another tutor which were not even mentioned throughout the whole process by their own tutor. This was at times frustrating for the students. An extra (optional) feedback moment in the week is something that is missed and needed. There was only one short feedback moment in the week, which was not enough to comfortably ask your questions and receive comments on your work. This could be easily solved by planning another moment.

In general, the course itself was very interesting with a lot of meaningful aspects. Really learn to apply the gained knowledge of the first year. In addition, this was done with a suitable project.
However, as every group has a different tutor, the differences between these tutors were sometimes quite significant. Even though every group as a different tutor, the requirements should stay the same.

As the only ‘lectures’ are the tutor hours, these hours are very valuable, especially as the feedback gives was quite useful. However, as there is no student assistance it can be quite difficult to continue with the project when one gets stuck.
In addition, as there is only 1 hour of feedback per group, this is not a lot and could be more. Giving the option of mailing in between the feedback sessions would help the students when they are stuck.

The feedback about the 1 hour session per group should be slightly adjusted to the other projects as the feedback session for the A and U project differ for the B project.

Lastly, it would be nice to have a little group discussion so that one can see how the other students are doing. This helps the students to be motivated and continue with the project itself.

The project itself was suitable to apply the information obtained in the previous year.

Most of the work needed to be done at the end of the project, making the workload not evenly spread over the quartile.
However, on paper the workload is spread evenly. It is up to the students itself to manage this schedule. In addition, when the students fall behind the tutors will indicate that he/she needs to catch up with quite a lot of work.

This point is more general for all of the BAU projects. Be clear about how a combination of the different projects can be done. This often remains very vague and restrains a lot of students from making such a combination.

The studyguide was clear, but some information was only in the attachment of the evaluation forms and other information in the weekly planning. This was sometimes confusing, but overall it was a clear studyguide. The teachers gave good tutoring, but they contradicted each other. They did not agree on different aspects, so this was sometimes confusing.

The amount of meetings were right, but some students like to have more meetings or an open hour close to the deadline in the end. Students liked the assignment very well, because they have a lot of freedom and enough criteria to come to a design. Overall the project was experienced positively.

There was an intermediate presentation and an end presentation. It was clear what the deliverables needed to be for the deadlines. During the presentation it was again visible that the teachers did not agree with each other on different aspects.

Generally, students spent more than 140 hours on the course. They also experienced it as a more time-consuming project. They think they spent more time, because the project was very broad and you had a lot of freedom.

During the first urbanism project, the student gets an assignment to analyse and research an area. The student has to do individual work for this and work together with other students. The assignment was well explained in the study guide that could be found on Canvas.

The analysis in the project was distributed between students. In a large group, a report is made on one location. Each week there was tutoring for guidance and feedback.
The explanation of the project was very clear. However, the first assignment was short for the time students were given to complete it. The cause of this was the Covid situation which resulted in some changes in the assignment. The contrast between the amount of work that needed to be done for the first part of the project and the second part, created some stumbles in the work of some students.
A solution for this can be to change the weighting of the grading for this part of the project.

At the end of the project, students had to give a presentation. Extra teachers were asked to help for this, in order for there to be more than one teacher following the presentation.

As discussed earlier, there was a problem with the contrast in workload.
Next to that, the fact that the entire analysis was divided in a larger group, made the workload low in the beginning of the course. It also resulted in the student not being very much involved in the entire research.
A solution for the contrast in workload can be to have subgroups do certain parts of the analysis and then discuss them in a bigger group. This will offer opportunity for students to develop personal skills.

Most of the students experienced the project in a positive way. The way that the project consisted of a subjective and an objective analysis was a great way of doing an analysis. With this, the students learned how to perform real scientific research. The way the lecturers worked with Canvas was experienced in a good way by the students. All the information needed was available on Canvas and it was all very organized. Some students made the remark that the lecturers were not on one line during the feedback moments. This resulted in confusion with the students and in the groups. However, as noted from the lecturer, this is how it goes at the university and in the business world. The students have to get used to this way of supervision, that you get more than one opinion on your work.

The way the project was divided over the quartile was a good way of education. With a feedback moment from the lecturers ones a week, there was enough opportunity to ask questions and receive feedback. When a student wanted to know more or had an important question, there was the opportunity to send a mail to the lecturers or come by their office. Furthermore, there were the midterm deadline and another submission moment, therefore students were motivated to work on the project. Some students remarked that they would like more feedback moments with the lecturers, but the lecturer noted that this is not possible with the growing amount of students. There is an option that an individual part will be added to the projects. However, this is difficult with the growing amount of students. The opinion is that the students like this because they get the possibility to show their own skills. This is something for the next projects and the lecturers have to discuss if this is a possibility.

The final examination was the submission of a report and a final presentation. The students liked that there were people from the municipality present at the final presentation. They gave great tips and this helped the students really well with working on the following project. Concrete examples were given that really helped with forming a vision.

An addition to the studyguide: Add a note that the students are reminded to reserve a room for themselves.