Our first project of the semester took us to the Netherlands. We left Wednesday morning by bus around 8am and arrived in Amsterdam by 12:30pm. The ride from Bonn to Amsterdam is a beautiful tour through the countrysides and iconic sheep farms of the Netherlands. After a day in Amsterdam we went 45 minutes south towards the small coastal village of Noordwijk. Here we spent the next 2 days working on our Beach Runners and making our first conference call with the other schools.
On the bus ready to leave for Amsterdam at 7:45am.
Justin
Half of Justin and Thomas's Beach Runner
Thomas
Anne
Leaving Bonn at Sunrise
Our stop halfway to the Netherlands.
The Netherlands. Tons of farms!
These wind turbines are everywhere in the Netherlands.
There's a ton of factories in the Netherlands
Sheep are everywhere here.
This red building was a shopping mall... It was HUGE.
My first coke bottle where the ring and cap separated!!! In Germany, coke bottles and just about every other plastic bottle are absolute crap. The rings never break off.
My Beach Runner ready to go. The 8 balloons have clear tape on the bottoms so that they wont pop if they hit anything sharp on the beach. They acted as a suspension, and my replacement over the conventionally used wheel-approach. They are taped and pinned to the styrofoam body. On the body is a bag, propped up and taped down. The bag is meant to collect wind and be the main propellant for the Beach Runner, although the balloons can also act as a secondary form of movement because of their light weight.
Mine and another group's Beach Runner.
Wesley and Natalia's Beach Runner
Kevan and Stephanie's BR.
Once the sled begins moving, these marbles fall to the outside creating forwards momentum inside the wheel.
Justin's BR. Some type of bird flying thing.
Channing and Brad's super sexy ball thing.
A ball of balloons. Emily and Kaylee's BR.
A tumbleweed made out of styrofoam peanuts. Evan and Collin's BR.
Alex and Parker's BR. Amazingly enough, it worked perfectly every time, contrary to their expectations. This "barrel skeleton" thingy rolled forever.
Lauren and Jessica's BR
Inside our StayOkay hostel in Noordwijk.
The cafe inside the hostel. Only open for breakfast, lunch, or dinner upon request. Not every day.
Down the stairs to the room we assembled our projects in (room with the door open), and to the 3 wings of rooms.
The pavilion outside the hostel. I'm assuming this is usually being used when it's not 30 degrees outside.
The beach where we ran our Beach Runners.
At the end we let them all go at once.
The first victim. The structure couldn't hold up the high winds and finally collapsed and stuck into the ground.
The next victim... caught on some dried seaweed.
4 of the Beach Runners ran forever. They were going so fast that none of us could catch up to them, so we just let them go.
In the distance you can see some people who were still trying to chase their BRs.
The group in the distance is where we let them go from. This photo was taken in the same spot as the previous photo. As you can see, the people in the previous photo must have been VERY far away from the original group.
The North Sea! This beach is so flat, that during low tide the water recedes 600m-1km.
Another victim. You can see the trail of it's crash.
Wesley managed to recover his after it got stuck on a hill in the dunes some 1000m+ down the beach.
Anne and Meredith's Prize. A 100 pack of markers.
Natalia and Wesley's prize
A dart gun.
Kevan and Stephanie's prize, a glittery bouncy ball.
Between the hostel and the monstrous dunes was a country club. Just check out the view of this golf course!!!
Like something from a fairy tale. This was a golf cart path to the golf course.
Our hostel from the path we took to get to the beach.
The rest of the village.
The roads in and out of Noordwijk.
Because the dunes are so big here in Noordwijk, there are many paths weaving through them. All of the paths are paved, and bicyclists and runners exercise throughout the dunes. This parking lot was pretty full from all the people taking the paths for some exercise.
