Do you know who is Kolomko?
Interview with Kolomko designers
Thanks to the cooperation between?BSH?and the?MyMachine?program of the?Carpathian Foundation, we interviewed a couple of interesting students from TUKE. Ondrej and Samuel are the lead design team of the current MyMachine and are key to the success of our sponsorship. We were curious about their experience and background.?
Hello Ondrej and Samuel.?
Besides our coordinator??ofia, you two are key figures of the collaboration, please briefly tell us something about yourselves.?
SAMUEL (MyMachine): My name is Samuel Vallu?,?I'm from Poprad, I'm 19, I study at the?Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at TUKE, in the field of computer support for mechanical engineering production - it's primarily focused on things like 3D printing, CAD, KEM systems.?
ONDREJ?(MyMachine):? My name is Ondrej Mra?ík, I'm 20, I also study at TUKE in the field of mechanical engineering. After my bachelor's degree I would like to ?become a designer. I am very interested in all matter related to design.?
That's also why I'm interested in MyMachine. ?It's one of those amazing programs where you can devote yourself to things like designing and constructing.?
MARTIN:?For our company, we need to pursue actively Promotional activities. We first discovered MyMachine as a program at the Slovakia TECH conference in Ko?ice. Program such as MyMachine are a huge opportunity.?We sponsor a school and our partner at? MyMachine takes care of the rest - organization, contacts, promotion, networking, etc.?
How did you two find out about the MyMachine project??
ONDREJ:?I first met MyMachine in high school. We were contacted by ?university about a specific project. At that time, of course, I didn't know how organizationally extensive this project would be and how amazing it is ??. Of course I agreed!? When I started university, I was looking for various extracurricular activities. I considered initially joining the car guys, but was not accepted out my age. When I found ?a reference to Mymachine project somewhere ?I immediately thought fondly a high school activity that I just had to try! That's how I actually met Samko.?
SAMUEL:?From the beginning of my studies I have been seeking a "side gig”.?At first, I considered something related to 3D printing, but eventually was advised by the vice-dean to volunteer with MyMachine.?I don't regret it at all, because the work on Kolomko (the current project in MyMachine; author's note) will require involve up to 90% 3D printing.??
MARTIN:?The collaboration is nearing its end (june 2024) How do you evaluate your experience with MyMachine??
SAMUEL:?I'll do it again. The benefits are clear for all the opportunities it offered us : to design a prototype by ourselves, to gain new experiences, to meet and support students?I was also enchanted, for example, by the experience from the last visit to the class at the elementary school in Humenné - such well-behaved students are not often seen.?
MARTIN:?Yes, I ?must confirm that it surprised me too. The discipline and creative atmosphere of the class was exceptional.?
ONDREJ:?Agreed. It surprised me too.??
SAMUEL:?Those are only once in a lifetime moments. Interactions with high school have been also fine. They were there whenever we need advice on what functions it will have, where we will install what - so?I firmly believe that the result will be worth it too.?
ONDREJ:?I see it similarly to Samko. It has great benefits for both of us. We can create something new, learn new things, meet new people.?It's important for me to always try something new. So that's also why we jumped into it like this. We had to deal with a few unexpected and challenging ?moments ! I feel we are already more adept at dealing with such situations. For instance when we must improvise. But so far it has always worked out , I think one hundred percent, even when we improvised. This gives us a lot in life - thanks to MyMachine.?Of course, we benefited greatly from the support not only high school contacts but also BSH experts.?We are trying to use information from every corner of the engineering field, That's why I think MyMachine serving lesson of real life experience.?I want to highlight how positively surprised I was by the energy from the other academic organizations: from the elementary school (ideation) in Humenné, to the vocational high school (production) and also us (design).?Also the overall cooperation spanning a full academic year is quite remarkable, even though we sometimes have some disagreements, we have learned to solve these situations and come to a successful solution.
MARTIN:?So you feel that this activity is useful for you also in terms of your future profession??
SAMUEL:?Definitely yes!??
ONDREJ:?Sure! Certainly - one hundred percent!?
MARTIN:?I have no doubt in terms of organizational skills. But does it also benefit you in terms of your professional growth??
ONDREJ:?Yes, of course! We have to figure so much on own!?Even though ?ofia or BSH expert are willing to advise us, we have to do the basic work.?In particular, the searching for new solutions is actually what MyMachine is all about. For example, with Kolomko: We were stuck wihtout knowing how to proceed.?Once I spotted flower pots during shopping, and the idea was born! It's an extreme boost for life, this MyMachine ???
MARTIN:?Is the MyMachine project well-known among your peers or classmates? Would you recommend it to your friends??
SAMUEL:?Our faculty (Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, author's note) and the whole university are aware. Every year there must be some proactive people willing to spend some time and create something extra. In general, I think MyMachine is a well-known concept.?
MARTIN:?Have you tried recommending it to anyone??
SAMUEL:?I tried to attract a few people to this project, unfortunately without success so far.?
ONDREJ:?As for me, I don't know many people who are familiar with MyMachine.?I discussed it with fellow mechanical engineering students in Bratislava. I even showed them the?Kolomko?video on BSH LinkedIn -?it is a very technologically simple thing, yet it had a huge response and fascinated them. We realized that this opportunities are missing in Bratislava. Some of them were interested to the point of even asking about the possibility of participating in it. They probably won't make it this year, but maybe they will next year.?
MARTINA (BSH): About Bratislava - I think the project itself is focused on eastern Slovakia, and only recently I noticed activities in central Slovakia as well. So I guess it's not yet established in Bratislava.?
MARTIN:?I have already caught somewhere the information that MyMachine cooperates with the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering of STU in Bratislava and also with the Faculty of Technology of TUZVO in Zvolen. These activities depend heavily on the support of local corporate partners in particular regions.?
I have also been talking since last year about this project to our colleagues abroad, mainly in Germany.?They were also excited by the scope of Mymachine. ?the idea of connecting the creativity of elementary school children with the design skills of university students and the technical skills of high school students is a large and useful undertaking in its scope. The very concept of the project is so attractive that colleagues in Germany have decided to look for local organizations that can support this activity...?
ONDREJ:?MyMachine is a powerful idea and I believe it will spread further. I myself, if there is an opportunity, will help even with some marketing activity to get it not only all over Slovakia but even to Poland or anywhere else. People need to put their heads together to create amazing things.?
MARTIN:?Do you know?BSH?more closely or just superficially? Have you heard about us before or only as part of cooperation with MyMachine??
ONDREJ:?I know BSH a little bit, one of my friends works there. Also, friends of my father work at BSH, so this company is not completely unknown to me. But that's about it, I don't have further information about you.?
SAMUEL:?I have to admit that I had no idea about BSH. As I mentioned, I'm from Poprad, so it's a bit further away, so I don't have "local possibilities" to get this information. Individual companies like Bosch and Siemens are of course well-known brands to me. Siemens mainly because of Solid Edge (SW tool for design, simulations, modeling etc.; author's note) and Bosch mainly because of various tools and instruments.
MARTINA:?Who actually came up with the name, Kolomko???
SAMUEL:?The name was suggested by Tomá?ko - one of the students in the Humenné class.
ONDREJ:?That little boy explained it by saying that he saw some fairy tale where there were traffic signs and a cone. He came up with his own running cone that would listen to him ??. So this is the essence of how our Kolomko came about.
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MARTIN:?I will just add at the end that if you need a help or advice during the project, feel free to turn to us. Many of our colleagues, whether hardware, software or other experts, will be happy to devote at least a while to both Kolomko and your fellow designers to improve it as much as possible.
Thanks for the interview.?:)
ONDREJ:?Thank you.?
SAMUEL:?Thank you.?
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