More and more sport clubs are switching from their natural stretch of grass to artificial ones. Artificial grass systems have several benefits over natural types of grass in that they are playable through out the year, durable, have the same look and feel as natural grass and can be recycled. Artificial grass, also known as artificial turf, can be used for various sports including but not limited to football, tennis and hockey.

An artificial grass system is usually made of several layers:

(1) Concrete or soil base layer

(2) Subbase; 30 - 50 cm of sand (stabilizing, drainage)

(3) Layer of lava rock; 5 - 10 cm (stability, flatness)

(4) Thin film of geotextile wrap; about 1 - 2 mm (pressure levelling)

(5) Shockpad; 1 - 5 cm (comfort, shock absorb)

(6) Backing, cloth to adhere the artifical fibres to; about 1 - 2 mm

(7) Artificial grass fibres turfed in the cloth; the fibres are about 5 cm in length are coated with silicone and after the tufting process are fixated to the cloth with latex.

(8) Sand and rubber infills. The concentration of the rubber infills (grains) together with the amount of sand controls the ball bounce, ball roll and traction and prevents injuries upon slidings and landings.

For my work at INTRON, I co-invented and implemented a wireless sensor system to monitor the condition of artificial grass. Actually, such a system has never been installed and used before, we are the first who implemented it. In fact, this is thus a world premier.

The first artificial grass system with wireless sensors is the soccerfield of the Heracles soccer club, Almelo, The Netherlands. We take care of the whole sensor system and are responsible for the data interpretation.

This so-called "smart soccerfield" is capable of wirelessly measuring movement on the field by using approximately 20 wireless movement sensors. The acquired data (which is transfered to INTRON via a secure connection) can be used to monitor the total amount of play-hours per sensor location, to register the frequency and amount of maintenance and to monitor the physical condition of the field.

More information can be found here, here and here.

Together with a couple of friends, my girlfriend and I, visited the Decibel Outdoor 2008 festival, Hilvarenbeek, The Netherlands. Decibel is a festival where the various sounds of bass pumping music can be heard for 12 hours long (11 - 23 hr). Styles like hardstyle, hardbass, oldschool, hardcore, jump, etc. were present.

Although it is not music for the mainstream I love it for a while now (since my early teenage years). People often think I'm crazy for loving this music, but it still can give me goose bumps. Some impressions of the music and the tens of thousands of people who visited this festival can be seen below.

A couple weeks ago I was playing a bit with the Geobrowser module for Drupal. And since I am a huge fan of Sketchup and lately the nice Hypercosm exporter for Sketchup (to view and annote your 3D models online) I made a small demo-website.

This demo-website is showing the capabilities of Drupal, the Geobrowser module, Sketchup and Hypercosm all together.

Click on the appropriate flag to display the corresponding 3D model of the building or construction. You can also (de)select from which country you want to display the 3D models (one of the nice features of the Geobrowser module, taxonomy based menu's). The demo works great in Firefox but a little bit buggy in IE.

link to the demo-website

Inspired by the projects carried out by Johnny Chung Lee, I have also tried and succeeded in connecting the wii remote (plus nunchuck) to my pc using bluetooth. It is as if a new world is born. Pretty damn nice to benefit from all the nice features of the wii remote on your pc.

Although my onboard bluetooth device isn't able to connect correctly with the wii remote, with an external usb powered bluetooth dongle it works.

Here is a short list of links to applications and (Glovepie)scripts to use on your pc for the wii remote.

* Google Sketchup Glovepie Script (physical "joystick" for Google Sketchup)

* Google Earth Glovepie Script (navigate through Google Earth)

* Bluetunes (control your music and video collection)

* WiiDrums (play the drums using the wiimote)

* Wiinstrument (play various music instruments using the wiimote+nunchuck)

* WiiSmooth Board (together with the wii remote you can create a digital whiteboard from any surface or wall)

* WiiSticks (use two wii remotes or a wii remote + nunchuck to balance a rod)

* WiiPresenter (control powerpoint)

Many more applications and scripts can be found online. But the above ones are my favorites.  If you have any more good ideas, scripts and/or links for using the wii remote on your pc, please let me know.

 A photograph I took of the sky while sitting in the twilight.

A few lines (sorry its in Dutch) about my table tennis career written by my fellow team players. I thought it would be funny to show; pretty amusing.

 ... "Restless" Rudy van der Blom toonde zich zodanig explosief in zijn spelopvatting dat die "l" in zijn achternaam best gemist kan worden. In een thuiswedstrijd tegen Sibbe kwam hij tegen zijn "geliefde" Marij op een 0-2 achterstand. Pogingen tot coaching stonden op dat moment synoniem voor zelfmoordacties. Taktische aanwijzigingen zouden geleid hebben tot escalatie van tegenwerkende krachten. Rudy ramde er volgens het principe "de dood of de gladiolen" op los. Menige bal kletste dientengevolge tegen het gezicht van zijn lieftallige opponent. De meesten echter resulteerden in het vergroten van zijn voorsprong. Winst ten langen leste ...