the rock box | EC&T | April 2026

In these boxes (we have 10 full sets), we put 14 rock samples of the three rock types (igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic), two rock cycles printed on (one in Dutch and one in English), infographics in both languages (geological time, structure of the Earth, and plate tectonics), and a 3D printed device that let participants see thin sections under polarised conditions.

"the rock box" is an initiative from Tobias Schmiedel and myself.

We use these for school visits, when school visit us (see picture here), science days, open days, parents days, and public outreach in general. And we also have practicals with them for the 1st year bachelor students.

Exhibition booth on scientific outreach | NWO NAC | April 2026

Demo from our education program (Earth, Climate & Technology)

This year at NAC (Dutch EES conference), colleagues and I had a booth to illustrate how we try to connect with the public.

For two days, we had on display/demo the following initiatives where I'm involved:

V-Rock (VR headset with virtual outcrops),
Lightweight drones from the education fleet of the EC&T flight office,
the rock box (rock samples, rock cycle, and infographics, thin section-3D printed devices).

And, we had much more initiatives to show:

a build-your-own-cloud chamber,
a VR set for geophysics,
LEGO urban heat island model,
A working model of a volcano,
and much more!

Publication KNGMG | Geo.brief | November 2025

Field trip to Morocco featured in the Geo.brief of November 2025.

The Geo.brief is a joint publication of the KNGMG and the NWO domain of Exact and Natural Sciences (ENW) and is published 8 times per calendar year (ISSN 1876-231X).

https://www.kngmg.nl/geo-brief/

Outreach | TUDelft Science Day | October 2025

Drone booth: Displaying the Fleet and the obstacle run.

130 wanna be pilots (5-12yo) tried to fly our DJI Neo through an obstacle run in the drone cage and got this badge to wear for their success!

Outreach | TUDelft Science Day | November 2024

Displaying the fleet of drones from the 'Earth, Climate & Technology Flight Office'.

OSDARA: Platform for drone operators, owners, and pilots of the TUDelft.

Outreach | Applied Geology 3D geo-archive | since 2013

3D models, outcrops, well cores, and rock hand samples captured/developed by geoscientists of the Applied Geology Section at the TUDelft.

Visit our Sketchfab page here

Organisation | Drone Flight Office of the education program | since 2023

EC&T Flight Office

Drone data acquisition is nowadays routinely used in geo-scientific missions in the wildest sense (geo = study of the Earth) and resulted in an increase of the number of drones in our faculty. Therefore, both departments running the education program have joined forces in the creation of a common flight office, the “EC&T flight office”, which include all assets (drones and ground equipment), drone pilots (European licenses), drone owners, and drone operators (maintenance of the fleet, insurance, flight schedule, knowhow for data acquisition and post-processing, etc…).

Our current fleet of drones includes 8 drones (from a DJI Matrice 300 capable of carrying a payload of ~3kg, 2 Mavic pros, and down to two DJI NEO of about 135g), over 10 pilots, 4 drone owners, and 3 drone operators. All drones are marked with the RDW operator number, as per European regulations.