Hardware Engineering

🎭 Improv Utrecht Presents a Show Like No Other! 🎭 The advanced graduates of the course "On Stage!" of trainer Rutger Holmes will take the stage at Theaterhuis De Berenkuil to showcase their skills in a very fun and interactive show. Expect improv games, improvised singing and beautiful meaningful scenes. 💡 What is Improv? Improv is live, unscripted theatre where anything can happen! The performers create characters, scenes, and entire stories from scratch, all based on audience suggestions and their quick-thinking creativity. It’s spontaneous, electric, and completely unique—no two shows are ever the same! 🎟 Tickets Now Available! Don't miss this one-night-only spectacle of storytelling and laughter. Secure your tickets online before they’re gone! Book your ticket at [improv-utrecht.weticket.io](http://improv-utrecht.weticket.com/) : €14 plus €0,7 service fee Before and after the show we have a very nice bar to meet & greet people. 📅 When? Friday 24 April 20:00h. Bar open 19:15 📍 Where? Theaterhuis De Berenkuil, Biltstraat 166 Join us for a night of creativity, comedy, and community—we can’t wait to see you there! Find out more about Improv Utrecht, our other shows and courses at [www.improvutrecht.nl](http://www.improvutrecht.nl/)

This session focuses on **Sparse and Ranking in Modern Retrieval**, featuring two speakers: **Simon Lupart** from University of Amsterdam and **Chuan Meng** from University of Edinburgh. **Location:** Science Park 904, Room C3.161 **Date**: Friday, April 24 **Time**: 16:00-17:00 **Zoom** **link**: [https://uva-live.zoom.us/j/65011610507](https://uva-live.zoom.us/j/65011610507) Details below: **Speaker #1**: **Simon Lupart** from University of Amsterdam **Title:** On the Challenges and Opportunities of Learned Sparse Retrieval for Code **Abstract:** Retrieval over large codebases is a key component of modern LLM-based software engineering systems. Existing approaches predominantly rely on dense embedding models, while learned sparse retrieval (LSR) remains largely unexplored for code. However, applying sparse retrieval to code is challenging due to subword fragmentation, semantic gaps between natural-language queries and code, diversity of programming languages and sub-tasks, and the length of code documents, which can harm sparsity and latency. We introduce SPLADE-Code, the first large-scale family of learned sparse retrieval models specialized for code retrieval (600M-8B parameters). Despite a lightweight one-stage training pipeline, SPLADE-Code achieves state-of-the-art performance among retrievers under 1B parameters (75.4 on MTEB Code) and competitive results at larger scales (79.0 with 8B). We show that learned expansion tokens are critical to bridge lexical and semantic matching, and provide a latency analysis showing that LSR enables sub-millisecond retrieval on a 1M-passage collection with little effectiveness loss. **Bio**: Simon is a third year PhD student at the University of Amsterdam, working on Information Retrieval and LLMs. He has graduated from a computer science engineering school in France, made an Erasmus exchange in London, during his master, at the imperial college london, and worked in the industry for 2 years at naver labs europe. Now he will present his latest work from an internship at naver labs europe. **Speaker #2:** Chuan Meng from University of Edinburgh **Title**: Revisiting Text Ranking in Deep Research **Abstract**: Deep research has emerged as an important task that aims to address hard queries through extensive open-web exploration. To tackle it, most prior work equips large language model (LLM)-based agents with opaque web search APIs, enabling agents to iteratively issue search queries, retrieve external evidence, and reason over it. Despite search's essential role in deep research, black-box web search APIs hinder systematic analysis of search components, leaving the behaviour of established text ranking methods in deep research largely unexplored. In this talk, we revisit key findings and best practices for text ranking methods in the deep research setting. In particular, we examine their effectiveness from three perspectives: (i) retrieval units (documents vs. passages), (ii) pipeline configurations (different retrievers, re-rankers, and re-ranking depths), and (iii) query characteristics (the mismatch between agent-issued queries and the training queries of text rankers). We perform experiments on BrowseComp-Plus, a recent deep research dataset with a fixed document corpus, evaluating a broad spectrum of text ranking methods across diverse setups. We find that agent-issued queries typically follow web-search-style syntax (e.g., quoted exact matches), favouring lexical, learned sparse, and multi-vector retrievers. Passage-level units are more efficient under limited context windows, and avoid the difficulties of document length normalisation in lexical retrieval. Re-ranking consistently improves performance, with deeper re-ranking depths amplifying gains. Translating agent-issued queries into natural-language questions significantly bridges the query mismatch and improves effectiveness. Related paper: [https://arxiv.org/pdf/2602.21456](https://arxiv.org/pdf/2602.21456) **Bio**: Chuan Meng is a postdoc at the University of Edinburgh, working with Dr. Jeff Dalton. He received his PhD from the University of Amsterdam in June 2025, supervised by Prof. Maarten de Rijke and Dr. Mohammad Aliannejadi. He was formerly an Applied Scientist Intern at Amazon. His research focuses on agentic information retrieval (IR) and deep research. He has published 25+ papers in top-tier venues such as SIGIR, ACL, EMNLP, NAACL, CIKM, AAAI, ECIR, and TOIS, with 650+ citations on Google Scholar and an h-index of 16. He has co-organised tutorials and workshops at SIGIR 2025, WSDM 2025, ECIR 2024–2026, SIGIR-AP 2024. **Counter:** SEA Talks #303 and #304.

NEDERLANDS Metalheads unite! Zorg dat je kroon stevig zit, want vrijdag 24 april moshen we voor de monarchie om je metal fix te krijgen voor koningsdag 🔥🔥🔥 En natuurlijk omdat het gewoon een mooi excuus is om samen te headbangen, feesten en moshen! 🤘🏼 Onze DJ's draaien van 20:00 tot 01:30 jullie metal requests terwijl je geniet van een lekker drankje en/of hapje uit de keuken. Gratis entree. We hebben heerlijke Dimmu Burgers, Beëlzeballen, Satan's Stengels en Satan's Ingewanden om van te smullen voor jullie 🍔🥩🤤 Dus vraag je favoriete nummers aan, neem een drankje en geniet! 🤘🏼🥳🤘🏼 ENGLISH Metalheads unite! Make sure your crown is on tight, because Friday 24th of April we mosh to the monarchy to get your metal fix before kingsday 🔥🔥🔥 And ofcourse because it's simply a nice excuse to headbang, party and mosh together!🤘🏼 Our DJ's will play your metal requests from 20:00 till 01:30 while you enjoy a nice drink and/or bite from the kitchen. Free entrance. We'll have delicious Dimmu Burgers, Beelzeballs, Satan's Sticks, and Satan's Guts for you to feast on 🍔🥩🤤 So request your favourite songs, have a drink and enjoy!🤘🏼🥳🤘🏼

Welcome to the first Cocktail & Mocktail Crawl: Pre King's Day Weekend Edition! **🍊🍹** After a successful first Cafe Crawl and with a second one just around the corner, it's time to introduce something new. This is the Cocktail & Mocktail Crawl. We're kicking off the King's Day weekend the right way, with good drinks, great company, and a little orange. Wear or bring something orange to get into the King's Day spirit! We meet at the Neude and from there we visit two great bars with a delicious cocktail & mocktail menu. At both stops you'll be put in small groups of 4 to 6 people, so there's nice space to connect and have good conversations. ⚠️ Not sure if you can make it? Please free up your spot for someone else.

**Join us for Spring Drinks for Expats & Locals!** Celebrate the arrival of spring with fresh connections and great company! 🌿 We’re excited to invite you to Spring Drinks for Expats & Locals. This evening is all about enjoying the season of renewal with meaningful conversations, laughter, and a welcoming international crowd. **What to expect** * A lively and inclusive atmosphere to enjoy good company. * Conversations with a diverse mix of locals and internationals. * A laid-back evening of cultural exchange, friendships, and fun. **Who should join** * **Expats** looking to expand their social circle and make new friends. * **Locals** eager to share their culture and connect with an international crowd. * **Anyone** looking for a relaxed, social evening filled with great energy and good vibes. Don't miss out - **RSVP now** and join us for an unforgettable evening! Join the WhatsApp group: brand.page/expatslocalswhatsapp Follow us on Instagram: instagram.com/expats.locals Become a Welcomer: https://www.expatslocals.com/become-a-welcomer

**This might be the girls night you didn’t know you needed.** Many women are living in constant “on” mode- always busy, always giving. And somewhere along the way, we forget how good it feels to simply *be together*. This is your invitation to a real **girls night out**. Every 3 weeks we come together to relax, laugh, connect and support each other — without pressure, without fixing, without performance. **When women gather in a safe and supportive space, something powerful happens.** We uplift each other through shared laughter, honest conversations, and non-judgement presence. Being around other women who get it can make everything feel a little lighter and brighter. It helps us feel less alone, more supported, emotionally stronger - sometimes simply by being in the same room together. Sometimes we talk. Sometimes we listen, Sometimes we laugh - and even sing - until our bellies hurt. You’re free to share what’s on your mind, or simply enjoy the energy of being around other women who get it. There’s no agenda. No judgement. Just genuine connection, joy, and friendships that feel *easy and real.* And often, there’s that quiet thought: *“oh wow, I didn’t know I needed this.”* All I ask is that you come exactly as you are — tired, joyful, quiet, loud, curious, or unsure. Everything is welcome. We meet every 3 weeks - The upcoming months it will only be in Utrecht. later on we will switch between Utrecht, Amsterdam and Leiden - because connection grows when we keep showing up for each other — not perfectly, just honestly. ✨ Come as you are. ✨ Leave feeling lighter, more connected, and a little more yourself.

With warm & good weather on the horizon again, it's time again to get more picnic-y & outdoors-y 🌄 For this new season, let's revisit the old picnic gathering formula, but add into the night vibe & spicy dance theme (in this case tango, because other dances are oversaturated with events 😊) The premise: A picnic gathering starting from 19:00 & ending 23:00 sharp Since it's evening vibes, BYO food/drinks/games still applies but think time appropriate (don't go big on alcohol though!) Dancing aspect, music starts 20:00 & ends 23:00 sharp! Exact location in Griftpark: To be concluded, but assume close to where the meetup event location currently is set at Additional notes for the tango aspect: * you're very much welcome to join in & dance, even with no experience. I can show you a thing or two so you can get a taste & give it a go 😊 Depending on how many, either via a quick group tryout or I help you out individually * The tango aspect of the event is through the Utrecht Tango Cafe Milonga community (also organized by Constantinos) More info --> https://www.utrechtcafemilonga.com If you have any further questions, feel free to message the host Depending on the time & weather, and whether people are up for it, follow-up drinks can always follow later that day. To those interested, I hope to see you there! 😄

Whether you are a veteran board gamer, or it is your first time playing board games, time to roll some dice, play some cards and flip the table!!! :P You can bring your own games and/or play those brought by others. Also, plenty of games to be chosen from Het Lab to be played. No need to know the rules to a game beforehand. Usually people are happy to explain the rules. Feel free to drop a comment in the event's comments section to look for players for a specific game. \- You can bring your own food or have it delivered. There are plenty of restaurants and food venues are around Het Lab. You can buy soft drinks at Het Lab. \- As usual\, voluntary contribution of 3 Eur per person is more than welcome to pay for the costs of the venue \- All participants get 10% discount on all games purchases on the day of the Meetup Hope to see you all there, happy gaming in the meantime!

* We **start at 11:30** at Train Station Driebergen-Zeist (in front of: NS Stationshuiskamer https://maps.app.goo.gl/rxbgbhe877qTaoE2A * Length: \~16 km (4 - 5 hr hiking) * What to bring: lunch, water, snack. * For whom: As always, sporty folks that like to combine social event with being active in nature. **Getting there by Train:** * To Station: Driebergen-Zeist https://maps.app.goo.gl/1o211iUUR7ZzWZAq8 **Getting there by Car:** * P+R Driebergen-Zeist: Stationsweg 15B, Driebergen-Rijsenburg (payed) https://maps.app.goo.gl/Rzkus3PV1cXaiBV89 **Note:** * Please **pay a small fee (3 euro)** to help us cover the (increased) yearly Meetup contribution of 240 euro. We'll ask you to pay before the start of the hike (can be on the day itself). No refunds, but in the unlikely event that hike would be cancelled and you already paid, you don't need to pay for your next hike. Thank you so much! Use the **safe link** here: https://betaalverzoek.rabobank.nl/betaalverzoek/?id=cqlYWv_MTpSjp2VkROXWhA * Keep in mind that the hike can be canceled when the weather is very bad (**always check the event before you go**). * If you RSVP 'yes' we expect you to show-up. Please do not cancel less than 24 hours before the hike. **No-shows** will lead to your removal from the group. Thanks for the understanding. * By signing up for this event, you agree to release the organizers from any responsibility and liability in all claims. As the participation is strictly voluntary and you freely choose to join, it is the responsibility of individuals participating to ensure that they are fit enough and have adequate coverage to protect themselves.

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This is a public event. https://www.nesko.nl Please WhatsApp your meetup organisor for your confirmation!

Give your still good laptop a second life instead of ditching it because Windows 11 says it is no good... Or you heard Linux is cool. If you have a backup of your data, that is great, else indicate that you do not, so we can help you. Do so in an extra message or to m10@m10tech.nl, else I don't receive your information. Geef je laptop die het nog prima doet een tweede kans in plaats van hem af te schrijven omdat Window 11 dat zegt... Of omdat je hoorde dat Linux gaaf is. Als je al een backup van je data hebt gemaakt is dat perfect. Of verwacht je dat wij dat doen? In dat geval graag aangeven hoe vol je harde schijf nu is... Doe dat in een extra bericht of aan m10@m10tech.nl, want de info komt anders niet door.

Bring your Raspberry Pi, Arduino, microcontroller, or any other electronic project and join fellow electronics makers for a night of creativity and collaboration! This session is open forum to share your current projects—whether complete or in progress, it’s all interesting! Whether you’re deep into embedded systems, exploring new ideas, or just getting started, you’ll find a welcoming space to collaborate, share, and get inspired. **New to electronics or curious about tinkering?** You’re absolutely welcome. If you’re a beginner and want to experiment, I’ll have a couple of starter kits available so you can try things out—whether that’s blinking your first LED, putting something on a display, or experimenting with simple sensors. No pressure and no experience required—just an interest in learning and building. While we continue to pursue a more permanent venue for this Meetup, we’ll be using public library facilities based on availability. This session will be at the Worthington Park Library in the Olentangy Meeting Room.

It feels like we just saw each other 🤷. Join members of the local design and UX community for our monthly breakfast. For May we’re stopping in for Rooh’s popup breakfast/cafe concept. You know someone is getting the lobster yuzu croissant, and that’s not even the prettiest thing on the menu!.

Join other experienced and aspiring agile coaches and professionals to: * develop and practice your coaching skills in a peer-to-peer environment * share current successes and challenges in your work environment and get support from each other * learn from each other, build better relationships and experiment with new ideas ***NOTE:*** Pre-registration is required for this event. **Please arrive 10 minutes early** to check in at the security desk.

Thanks for being a part of the CABS Meetup Group! We meet @ the COFFEE UNDERGROUND on Indianola Avenue. We play many different games @ CABS - bring your own or play one of the OVER 2000 in our library. What are your favorite games? What was the last game you played? Hope to see and game with you soon! Check us out on Facebook! Doors open early on Saturday Mornings at 10am and around 4pm on Fridays if you are interested in learning new / simpler games ... or new to the hobby or just want to check us out come in early just after noon and we will show you around before the crowd grows. Stay for a game or two, an hour or two or for the day! Your first visit is free and after that it's $5 a meeting or you can join for the year! It's Your Move

Walk for Children - 2026 Save Soil Walkathon in Columbus 🌍 Over 52% of the world soil is degraded and scientists warn we may have only a few decades of fertile soil left. As Sadhguru shares, soil is a living system—and when it degrades, our food, health, and future are at risk. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyT-6qiubd0 🚶‍♂️🌎This Earth Day, Join the Walk for Children-2026 SaveSoil 5K Walkathon here in Columbus and help raise awareness about soil for the future of our children! Every step you take helps: ✔️ 1. Raise awareness in your communities about protecting and restoring soil. ✔️ 2. Supports sustainable food systems. ✔️ 3. Helps secure our children’s future. 📅 Date: April 26, 2026 📍 Location: Scioto Audubon Metro Park Check-in address 400 W Whittier St, Columbus, OH 43215 ⏰ Time: 8:30 a.m. check-in event starts at 9:30 a.m. 👉 Register here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/walk-for-children-2026-save-soil-walkathon-in-columbus-registration-1986596534713?aff=oddtdtcreator 👉🏼Free and Open to All. Share this message and bring your neighbours, friends & family along to celebrate our planet! Let’s make it happen!