Math geek. Coach. Researcher. Author. Public speaker. Programmer. Composer. Teacher. I've been called many things over the years, because I like doing tons of stuff. There's nothing that I don't enjoy doing, learning or making.

Next to that, I'm the overly idealistic type, always looking for ways to improve the world. Got an idea for that? Or do you have anything else going on that's fun/interesting and I can contribute to? Then don't hesitate to get in contact. Sharing ideas is always fun.

The Vierkant voor Wiskunde foundation that organizes mathematically themed summer camps for high school kids wanted some extra promotion to get kids to their camps. The idea? A mathematically themed Escape Room. I was happy to make one for them.

In short, it's a text-based adventure. You are "stuck in an abandoned school" and get a set of options (buttons) on what you can do. There is a variety of riddles - all interactive SVG applications - where you have to find a solution using clues you found throughout the area. On top of that, the game has various easter eggs hidden in them.

The downside? It's only available in Dutch. But all riddles (okay, except one obvious one) can be solved without knowledge of the Dutch language, so even internationals should be able to get through. Give it a try!

It started off as a hobby project during corona, but it quickly grew out of hand. I set up the web-app Step-Wise that automates large parts of teaching. It's focused on mathematics, physics and engineering mechanics.

Students learn best through practice, so Step-Wise is built around practice exercises. Students can enter their solutions (often expressions/equations and physical quantities with units) in an intuitive way, and directly get specific automated feedback on their work. Their progress is tracked using a self-designed machine learning algorithm (a dynamic Bayesian network) and the resulting predictions are then used to recommend new practice exercises, coaching students along the way. It is being applied in practice at the Utrecht University of Applied Sciences with very promising results.

The short story The Choice is about a ship of space colonists, traveling to their new home: a remote planet supporting life. When they get there, things aren't as they had hoped, and the ship will have to make some tough choices. The toughest one of them all: how should they actually make them? It's a rush filled with psychological dilemmas, political deliberations and ethical conundrums.

I wrote The Choice for a short story contest. The challenge was: write a science fiction story with a maximum of 17.000 words (roughly 50 paperback pages). Though the story didn't win, it was still fascinating to write about the dilemmas and to squeeze them all into a limited set of pages.

Did you read the story? Then do reach out and let me know your thoughts.

Some time I ago, I wondered if it was possible to quantify luck in games. For example in a game like Yahtzee, can you quantify how lucky a roll is? The answer: it is if you can figure out the optimal strategy.

To prove this, I set up a Yahtzee game. After analytically solving it, I also added a direct feedback mechanism in the app. While playing, you can immediately see how lucky each roll is, how smart each choice is, and what score you can expect to get on average.

Does this make the game more fun to play? Probably not, but at least it provides some interesting insights into the concept called "luck".