Future
Future
FBP and Beyond
My future beyond my FBP is still undecided, I want to pursue either a master in ID in Eindhoven or Delft. At the TU/e I’d probably choose T&R with either B&E or U&S. I personally think the combination of these two are the most interesting, but the other expertise areas are close.
What I mean by interesting is that there’s less of an overlap between the two in a design process in my mind. I use M,D&C and T&R almost as synonyms because I use them both for prototyping and creating. Even though MDC also has research under its wing. B&E and U&S both set design constraints for different reasons and sometimes the same. C&A is a bit of its own thing and forms the bridge between constraints and making. As well as starting off through ideation.
B&E and C&A are used to transfer the knowledge and reasoning behind my designs to others, while U&S helps with the storytelling. MDC adds onto B&E with more diagrams made through my own testing. T&R and U&S are for considering sustainability and longevity in design. C&A drafts up the interactions and design worked out in T&R. I can keep going on and on. It’s difficult to just choose two expertise areas when all are important to me, and I want to keep being a generalist in the future.
Speaking of storytelling, this upcoming quartile will be the first time I’ll be a PI&V mentor for year 1 students. I want to use the opportunity to improve my storytelling skills and aid in helping year 1 students understand PI&V. Also coincides with one of my macro goals for the FBP: How can I influence and engage people into Active Learning? The ID curriculum is already set up this way; however, the students themselves have to mentally buy into the system the curriculum proposes.
FBP Development Plan
For my FBP, I want to create a more personal and physical experience of using AI in education. There currently is a huge amount of cheating happening through the usage of AI. Even when AI has a lot of potential to improve the learning experience for students. Having a personal tutor and learning at your own pace, OECD recently published a report about the state of digital education. In it they describe that while the issue of AI is large, it isn’t anything new since the coming of the internet. The threat of passive learning is there, the kind where you read it but don’t understand why it is that way. (OECD, 2026)
I believe there is a gap for a good project and to create a physical digital AI tutor device in some form. Probably I will have to reframe AI tutor a bit, it is too generic currently and this can be expanded on. The biggest obstacle with this project would be filling out ERB forms and tackling that specific issue. Since the primary audience for this project and problem is in secondary education. I know this problem exists at universities as well, however trying to invoke more active learning at a young age.
The goal is to figure out a way to make the concept of learning new things fun. Which relates back to myself, where I am curious and can find interesting aspects in everything. Where I plan to challenge myself is to create a hi-fi prototype using laser-cutting, more tactile interactions and contact more stakeholders and testers.
Another part of this project is that I integrate a new Dutch LLM model as the driver for this device.(GPT-NL, 2025) I think this is relevant in the current geopolitical climate. Additionally, the model will be smaller than the smartest models around. There are some inherent limitations that form the potential for creativity in students, figuring out how to do this is interesting to me.
のびしろしか無いわ
"I've got nothing but room for growth"
- Creepy Nuts, のびしろ
Contact
E-Mail: merijn.verhaak@xs4all.nl
Linkedin: Merijn Verhaak
Photographer Instagram: collinshootz7