Meeting with Eric

Last Tuesday Irena, Peter and myself went to meet Eric Coatanéa, who is a professor of development process and system engineering. The idea was to discuss about the facilities where we would soon start developing our solar concentrator. Eric took us to Design Factory, which is Aalto University's new (started in 2008 I think) product design and learning facility. We took a little tour around the place, and boy, it looked great! I'm confident that we will find anything we need there, in terms of premises, tools and skilled helpful personnel. Couldn't hope for a better designing environment! The guys working there told us we could go and reserve room for us once we are more clear about the schedule. And some premises were even available without reserving them.

We also discussed the project itself, and since Eric is a professional, especially the designing phase. Eric gave us some good hints and points to take into consideration when designing the product. Since none of us has done any product development before (I think...or have you guys?), I think we should really try to get all the useful information out of these professionals that seem to be glad to help us.

Later we returned at the department of mechanical engineering, where Eric's office is. We met some of his colleagues, including William Brace, who I think has also been following our project a little. The guys at the department promised we could borrow their legos (these guys play with them A LOT) when figuring out the possible design. When shall we have a play day?

All in all, it was a great meeting. Nice to see that things seem to start to work out little by little.