The Product

Did you ever want to learn how to kite surf, but do you not live near the sea or are you scared of getting injured or don’t feel comfortable with the human contact or costs which comes with taking kite surfing lessons. Now we have the solution for you. Introducing Kite surfing in VR. Now you can learn the basics of how to kite surf from the comfort and warmth of your home. No need to get into that cold water and get all wet. No need to deprive your social battery with useless small talk while waiting for the instructor. No need to buy or rent equipment. The only thing you need is a computer and a VR set and you can learn how to kite surf and without any risk of falling or injuring yourself whatsoever. There’s also been studies which prove you learn faster if there’s no risk of injury so it’s a win-win. And the best thing about it, it is free to use so no extra costs which you would have with surfing lessons. So go to your local steam store right now and download the game and you’ll know how to kite surf in no time.


The Customer

The client of this project was Dr. Bibeg Limbu, a researcher at Delft University of Technology, faculty of Computer Science. A master student, Olivier Dikkens, started up the project and was there for us to assist us during the project. We had physical meetings at the university of Delft at least once a week, where we worked on the project as well as updating the professor and OIivier about our progress. This was also the moment that we could be pushed in the direction that the client had in mind. In between meetings we could always chat with Olivier via Discord or e-mail with Dr. Limbu. This made it a lot easier for us to keep the project going even when we would be stuck. Both Dr. Limbu and Olivier kept an eye on us but also gave us a certain amount of freedom in the steps we were taking. Although there was of course a clear minimal viable product and a list of assets that was wished for to be in the final product, we could also divide tasks like we wished and use our ideas to make the project our own. On top of that, there was a fine amount of flexibility at the clients side considering days to meet up at the university. This made it possible for us to use the VR equipment twice a week in the second half of the project, which was of great value.

  • Software engineering is about cultivating relationships with one another, and these relationships will outlast projects.
  • One should always listen and seek consenus with everyone. A bad program does not only affect the longevity of the project but all human components as well.
  • A bad program does not only affect the longevity of the project but all human components as well.
  • One should understand the difference between constructive feedback and personal attacks.
  • Software is only as good as it is useful.
  • It is incredible unproductive to do something that is not required in the first place.
The Team

Our team consists of five people: Sara Kooistra, Teun Bergsma, Max Visser, Artur Prawdzic and Jayme Hebinck. In our team, we are using three different roles to specify what each team member is responsible for. These roles are developer, scrum master and product owner. Everyone in the team is a developer; we all work together on our product. Two team members have an additional role: Sara Kooistra is the product owner. She is responsible for the communication between the developer team and the client, for leading the meetings with the client and adding the client’s wishes to the backlog of our scrumboard. Jayme Hebinck is the scrum master. He is responsible for the scrum process, including leading the scrum meetings (scrum retrospectives and scrum starts) and keeping the scrumboard up to date. Furthermore, he is responsible for dividing the tasks in the development team and checking whether tasks have been completed. Initially, our team started out with six team members. Unfortunately, team member Neal Kuiper decided to stop working on the project and drop the subject Software Engineering entirely. With the five of us, we continued working on the project and came to a good product. Overall, working in a team has been quite a challenging, including its ups and downs. Sometimes tasks were not finished in time, but with the open communication within our team, we were able to have these tasks finished in time for the product.


The Technologies