Wietse Maas (ASML) receives Wim van der Hoek Award 2025

This year, the award went to Wietse Maas. He worked at ASML on the optimisation of a concept for the system dynamics of a wafer metrology system and subsequently graduated from Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e). The jury praised his contribution in the field of passive damping to the well-known VanderHoekean design principles, as well as his in-depth elaboration. “His innovative concept is daring, sparks curiosity, and may well lead to other new solutions for passive damping in the future.”

The second day of the Precision Fair 2025, Thursday 13th November in Den Bosch (NL), featured the presentation of the Wim van der Hoek Award. This award (also known as the Constructors Award) was introduced in 2006 to mark the 80th birthday of the Dutch doyen of design engineering principles, Wim van der Hoek (1924-2019). The Constructors Award is presented every year to the person with the best graduation project in the field of design in mechanical engineering at a Dutch or Belgian university of technology (TU) or university of applied sciences (UAS). This award includes a certificate, a trophy made by the Leidse instrumentmakers School and a sum of money, sponsored by DSPE.

Nine nominations

Criteria for the assessment of the graduation theses include the quality of the design, its substantiation and innovativeness, as well as its suitability for use as teaching material. The nine nominations selected by the jury this year came from TU/e and Avans, Fontys and Utrecht UAS. The jury was chaired by DSPE board member Jos Gunsing (MaromeTech) and included Hans Steijaert (Vanderlande), Maurice Teuwen (JPE), Marc Vermeulen (ASML), Johan Vervoort (Vervos) and Wouter Vogelesang (VH Consult).

System dynamics optimisation

The 2025 Wim van der Hoek Award ultimately went to Wietse Maas, who studied Mechanical Engineering at TU/e. There, he graduated on his work at ASML: “Concept optimization of system dynamics of a wafer metrology tool”. For this, he conducted further research into two damping principles.

Thorough and counterintuitive

The jury praises the winner’s approach: “Wietse demonstrated his ability to successfully complete a broad mechanical engineering design assignment, combining mechanical design with theoretical and experimental analysis. He thoroughly researched and substantiated his concept.” According to the jury, the work could lead to a new paragraph in the book of design principles. This concerns influencing the properties of passive viscoelastic dampers. “His innovation is counterintuitive in the choice to apply a saw cut to the damper to influence its properties. This has already resulted in a patent application.”

A bold concept

The idea of Wietse Maas, who now works as a mechanical design engineer at ASML, is innovative, according to the jury. “It’s a bold concept as part of a machine frame that has been thoroughly analysed and designed, and also tested and verified. It sparks curiosity and may well lead to other new solutions in the field of passive dampers combined with viscoelastic materials in the future.”