Aalto Design Factory

Yesterday we received royal guests from Sweden! 👑Hosted by Aalto-yliopisto President Ilkka Niemelä, the Crown Princess Victoria and Prince Daniel visited 🏭 Aalto Design Factory to learn about our product development education and practices.

With an introduction from DF Director Tua Bjöklund, the royal couple also met Product Development Project student teams Saab and ABB.

Princess Victoria was impressed by PDP25 team Saab’s mine detecting drone solution which recognizes hard-to-detect plastic mines. Prince Daniel was equally interested in PDP26 team ABB’s smarter cable connector, saving hours of installation time.

Tack för besöket!

Heads up, Orientation Day for Master’s Programme in Mechanical Engineering is around the corner!

Welcome to learn about our 🏭 Aalto Design Factory courses
& offering from School of Engineering including Mechatronics, Engineering Materials, Arctic Technology, Product Development, Production Engineering, Solid Mechanics, and Marine Technology!

Join also the Labs Tours in the afternoon, schedule available on the Orientation Day Welcome booth in the lobby!

🕙 Kick-off 10.00 on Wed 26.8.2026
🏭 Aalto Design Factory, Viima Building, Puumiehenkuja 5

aaltoeng

Welcome to the DF family, Jaakko! 👋

Jaakko is joining us as our new Spaces Assistant, taking care of spatial management, upkeep, and repairs around the building.

He's currently a third-year architecture student at Aalto. When he's not at Design Factory, you'll find him at Rhinoluola or somewhere out in nature.

If you see him around, say hi!👋🏻

We are hiring a teaching assistant focusing on Engineering Impact and Sustainability at Aalto Design Factory!

You will be working with the teaching team to assist in the grading and administration of semester 1 courses. The position is for up to 50% of your time, and we can be flexible in how this is allocated. Availability on a Friday morning in P1 is essential. You will also have the opportunity to present some course content.

We are looking for someone with strong time management skills and a keenness to work as part of a team. Fluency in English and Finnish is required, and master's level is preferred.

⏱ up to 50% position, from September to mid-December 2026.
📍location is Aalto Design Factory. Must be available on Friday mornings.
🗓 apply by 10am August 20th. Suitable candidates will be interviewed 24+25 August.
👉 to apply or ask for more details email your academic transcript of records, CV and a motivation letter to [email protected]

From student to industry partner — what stays with you after Product Development Project? 💡

For alum Stefan Slob, now Device Services Engineer at Lumo Analytics, the answer was clear:
“Without a doubt, this was the most influential course in my master’s degree.”

That experience stuck. So when he joined Lumo, he brought Product Development Project with him — this time as a sponsor.

In collaboration with Lumo Analytics, 🏭 Aalto Design Factory’s PdP challenged a student team to rethink a traditionally manual process. Instead of technicians spending up to 30 minutes cleaning each sample box by hand, the team developed a concept for an automated system using high-pressure steam and a rotating brush — making workflows more efficient and consistent.

For him, the collaboration made sense from the beginning: “You get a group of eight students working approximately one day a week,” he explains. “That is a lot of intellectual firepower for a really small investment. It was kind of a no-brainer from our end.”

From Stefan’s perspective, the student team delivered more than expected:

“The team was very capable from the start, and what the students achieved is close to being a viable product.” Now, Lumo is looking at how to continue development and potentially commercialize the concept.

But beyond the outcome, it’s the experience that matters:

“It teaches you a bit about yourself, like the skills you have or the job you want. Synergy is how I would describe it. Both parties get something out of it that is more than what was originally put in!”🙌

Thinking of enrolling in the PdP next semester?
Stay tuned & find out more: https://pdp.fi/

Viima Building is closed on the 25 of June🚨
Due to maintenance, all electricity and systems will be cut off. It is NOT allowed to be in the building during maintenance🔧
We recommend that all devices that are sensitive to power outages be turned off in a controlled manner before the power outage.

We apologize for the disruption.

From seaweed to startup! What began as a student exploration into biomaterials at ’s course has grown into .official, a 6-member startup developing high-performance materials that could help replace virgin plastics in product design and manufacturing.

Sealevä’s journey shows what can happen when multidisciplinary students come together, build fast, and make use of the Aalto ecosystem. Gaining university-level support via became a critical turning point for the startup.

“Aalto offers a unique environment where you can go from idea to prototype at an exceptional speed,” reflects COO, Co-founder Mohamed Elamir. “ gives you the tools, but also the mindset to experiment, iterate, and not be afraid to fail. ”For a physical product startup, this kind of access mattered enormously.

“The challenge was how to navigate around the access to the different facilities around Aalto,” Mohamed explains. With support from DF and PdP, the team accessed specialized facilities across the university, including laboratories in for extrusion and biomaterial processing, and fabrication tools in . Spaces like and provided additional support, from community and mentorship to hands-on working environments. “It’s a goldmine for anyone who is building a material company!” Mohamed remarks.

With access to Aalto facilities, support from PdP, and feedback from more than 150 interviews with potential clients, suppliers, and partners, Sealevä turned experimentation into momentum and real-world opportunities.

“The best decision Sealevä’s founders could have made early on was to get involved with PdP,” says Lead Designer Coleman Pitburn.

biomaterials circulardesign

Why do new ideas fizzle out in organizations, and how do you get unstuck in innovation? 🤔

Our very own shared lessons from Aalto Design Factory's research and operations in a talk at Aalto University on exactly this. Full 15-min talk linked on our Linktree 👆

A few takeaways:
🙅 Ran into a no? You can sidestep, shift or stash ideas to find alternative routes to proceed
👥 Early involvement pays off in seeding change - think of collaboration as cultivating a pipeline, just like you would consider having a pipeline of development projects in your portfolio
⏩ Particularly radically new ideas require 360 degrees efforts to "sell" change upwards, downwards, horizontally and outwards
🛠️ Build momentum through people and revise systems to sustain attention and enable early experimentation

Second photo by Mikko Raskinen

‼️Students will not be able to access the building or DF Labs during the closure period, even if they have completed the necessary courses.‼️
Aalto staff and Partner Plaza members retain access during this time.

☀️Summer access requests
The form for summer access applications will be open 1–15 June 2026.
Summer access will be granted only in exceptional cases and with very strong justification.

LINK TO THE FORM on our website adf.fi/access

📝August note
There will be a two-week period in August when both general access and prototyping access remain inactive.
During that period, entry to the building is still possible during working hours when the building’s guard is present.