Sponsors & Contacts

When the team struggles to solve a technical challenge, the technical manager can step in using his knowledge of sponsors and external contacts who could help. Several types of contacts exist:

• Suppliers/sponsors: The suppliers/sponsors are listed under the Product Tree. This list includes what Roboteam used from each company during the year 2025-2026. (Please check with your external manager which one of these are sponsors).
• Service sponsors: Certain companies that are willing to sponsor Roboteam offer a certain monetary contribution and access to certain services:
  • • • • • • Demcon generally makes a contract with each student team individually at the beginning of January that includes a certain number of working hours (50 hours in 2026). These hours can be used for teaching sessions but also for consultancy, for development, and for expansion of Roboteam's technical network. Benchmark is a company with a very large variety of expertise fields, from biomedical to military engineering, and hence can also find adequate experts to help us, depending on the needs of Roboteam.
            • VDL is an important contact for Roboteam as our founder (Rick Timmer) currently works there. Usually, VDL organises a little introduction to technical drawing for all student teams at the beginning of the year. Later on, VDL is sometimes willing to produce certain metallic components for Roboteam. However, the team must provide proper technical drawings to VDL. Rick and his colleagues are generally happy to check, correct and advise on the design of certain components and their technical drawings. VDL is a company with many alumni from the UT and Saxion, and has an important expertise in metal manufacturing.
            • Benchmark offers multiple services, among which are laser-cutting services and testing infrastructures. They are generally open to discussion and are willing to help us find the most adequate service for the needs of the team.