Twenty months have passed since one of our SEEDS worker had to abruptly leave South Sulawesi (Indonesia) where one of SEEDS’ partners, Hasanuddin University, is located. On his flight back to Indonesia at the beginning of December 2021, our SEEDS worker wondered how the project of developing a curriculum in Digital and Embedded System Design based on FPGA technology has evolved in his absence.

While waiting in Germany for his work visas to be issued, our SEEDS worker continued to teach classes online (cf. story in the news archive for September 2020). One of his students showed a big interest in learning more about embedded system design. Therefore, this student, in the absence of our SEEDS worker, decided on his own to begin a project for his thesis in the field of motor control based on FPGA implementation technology. It was a good opportunity to watch from a distance on how this student navigated through the various challenges of working on this project by applying all that he had learned. Communication during that time was mainly about giving positive feedback on his progress and asking questions that lead to new discoveries on overcoming difficulties.

Upon the return of our SEEDS worker at Hasanuddin University the student was in the final stage of finishing his project. Assisted by our SEEDS worker’s colleague the student had set up his project with all the necessary equipment. So far results had been satisfactory but there was one challenge left to assure that the quality of one of the signals that he measured was sufficient. He tried many ways to overcome the “noise” that he observed but nothing worked out. The complexity of this problem made it difficult for our SEEDS worker to give input from afar. However, his return to Indonesia was very timely. Together they analyzed the problem and as a result the student started to understand how to apply an important principle of building embedded systems that he missed before.

In about two months this student will graduate and can look back proudly to all that he has achieved. When this student receives his certificate our SEEDS worker will have a big smile on his face.