Day 7 – The EAGLE has his last visits

For this day, we were going to visit two companies. The first company that we visited was Krakul. After Meeuwis had again guided us to the company perfectly, we immediately met one of the first things Krakul works on. These were the self-driving delivery robots of Starship Technologies, that were driving in the fields.

When entering the building, we first had to take off our shoes. It seemed like they wanted to keep everything clean, but after asking we learned that they do this in order to make the company feel more homey for the employees. We first got a small tour around the company, giving us a lot of flashbacks to the different ‘beun’ projects we did during our studies. Krakul started off really small and grew up to a company with quite a few fun projects, our favorite being a bottle opener that automatically registered the beer that you opened and sent it to a server. Of course us students really liked this invention 😉 .

After our visit to Krakul, we went to Artec Design. Artec Design is a company that helps clients conceptualize a product and also helps turn it into an actual physical product. We were received by an engineer, who showed us the variety of products Artec Design makes. Among others, they make the public transport card check-in poles in Estonia, and communication devices for point-to-point laser communication for skyscrapers in Japan. A remarkable product was a device that allows to test muscle tension. This product was actually used for research in the International Space Station! Also a fun fact: the engineer that received us turned out to have been studying in the Delft for his masters.

After the company visits, we went back to the old city center of Tallinn to eat some pizza and relax a bit. We had the rest of the day off after all. When we were finished with our lunch, I went to the Tallinn City museum with some other people. In the city museum there was an exhibition about the ‘100 years of Estonia’, where you could see pictures and stories about the history of Estonia and how it transformed into a modern nation. On the upper floors there was another interesting exhibition about the founding of Tallinn by the natives and later colonization by Swedes and Germans.

After a little stroll around the city to find the perfect gifts for the committee members, it was time to settle for a few drinks at the Olde Hansa: the oldest pub of Tallinn, fully in medieval style with beer served in tankards.

As this was the last dinner we would have, we gathered for a meal with all of the participants, at St. Patrick’s. This was also the place where we presented our gifts for the committee members. Lots of laughing happened when we presented our DIY cider packs and cold pancake mixes.

Roel en Quinten