# Petr Dobias — Full portfolio content > Industrial design portfolio of Petr Dobias (Petr Dobiáš). Featuring ARIA — a concept car designed to be repaired at home. Based in Eindhoven, NL. Maintained by Petr Dobias (petrdobias.design@gmail.com). Canonical site: https://petrdobias.me --- # ARIA > ARIA is a driveable €250,000 concept car designed to be repaired at home. Built by Petr Dobias with TU/ecomotive at Eindhoven University of Technology. - **Author:** Petr Dobias - **URL:** https://petrdobias.me/projects/aria - **Published:** 2025-11-01 - **Topics:** repairable EV, owner-serviceable concept car, modular vehicle, Automotive Design, Design for Manufacturability, TU/ecomotive, Eindhoven, sustainable mobility > _PROJECT · ARIA_ > TU/e · TU/ecomotive · 2024 — 2025 ## OVERVIEW ### A car the owner can repair at home. Always Repair (It) Anywhere - ARIA is a driveable concept built end-to-end by a student team TU/ecomotive. We built a car designed from the ground up so its owner, not a dealer, can replace body panels, electronics, interior textiles, and battery modules without specialist tools.The page below is a fifteen-month walk-through of the build: the concept, the sketches, the chassis, the moulds, the panels we cut by hand, and the reveal at the Evoluon. **Project details** - **Team:** TU/ecomotive - **Institution:** TU/e - **Type:** Design lead & Assembly manager - **Team:** ≈ 20 students across multiple disciplines - **Budget:** € 250 000+ - **Finished:** November 2025 - **Disciplines:** Automotive Design, Mechanical Engineering - **Methods:** Concept Creation, DfM, Multidisciplinary Collaboration, Visual Communication - **Tools:** Fusion 360 ## FAQ ### What is ARIA? ARIA is a driveable concept car designed and built end-to-end by a TU/e student team. It is engineered from the ground up so the owner can replace body panels, electronics, interior textiles, and battery modules at home, without specialist tools or dealer dependence. ### Who built ARIA? ARIA was built by TU/ecomotive, a roughly 20-student multidisciplinary team at Eindhoven University of Technology. Petr Dobias served as Design Lead and Assembly Manager on the project. ### How much did ARIA cost to build? The project budget exceeded €250,000, sourced through grants and sponsorship to make a driveable concept vehicle possible. ### Why design a car to be repairable at home? Most modern EVs are sealed systems that depend on dealer service, which drives up cost-of-ownership and shortens vehicle lifespan. ARIA reframes the car as something an owner can maintain — using quick-release fasteners, modular battery packs, and accessible electronics — to extend usable life and reduce waste. ### When was ARIA revealed? ARIA was revealed in November 2025 at the Evoluon in Eindhoven, after roughly fifteen months of design and fabrication. ### Where can I see ARIA? ARIA debuted at the Evoluon in Eindhoven in November 2025. The most up-to-date information is published on this portfolio at petrdobias.me/projects/aria and on tuecomotive.nl. --- # Octoping > A pair of connected octopus companions that mirror each other's touch — Final Bachelor Project at TU/e under Dr. ir. Joep Frens. - **Author:** Petr Dobias - **URL:** https://petrdobias.me/projects/octoping - **Published:** 2026-07-05 - **Topics:** Connected Devices, Aesthetics of Interaction, Soft Robotics, IoT, Psychology, User Testing, ESP32, 3D Printing, OOCSI, Mechatronics > _PROJECT · OCTOPING_ > TU/e · Final Bachelor Project · September 2024 — January 2025 ## OVERVIEW ### Can emotions travel better through tentacles than texts? Long-distance relationships are often defined by an emotional gap that text messages and video calls can never fully bridge. The absence of touch — a hand on the shoulder, an arm thrown across the bed — leaves a silence that words don’t fill.Octoping is a pair of remotely connected octopus companions designed to help partners spontaneously reach out and playfully share how they feel, without needing words. When one is touched or manipulated, its counterpart on the other side of the world awakens and mirrors the gesture through string-actuated soft-robotic tentacles. Developed as my Final Bachelor Project at TU/e under Dr. ir. Joep Frens. Featured at [4TU Dutch Design Week 2025](https://www.4tu.nl/du/projects/Octoping/). **Project details** - **Course:** Final Bachelor Project - **Institution:** TU/e · Industrial Design - **Supervisor:** Dr. ir. Joep Frens - **Type:** Individual project - **Duration:** ~20 weeks - **Finished:** January 2025 - **Exhibition:** 4TU Dutch Design Week 2025 - **Disciplines:** Connected Devices, Aesthetics of Interaction, Soft Robotics - **Methods:** IoT, Psychology, User Testing - **Tools:** ESP32, 3D Printing, OOCSI, Mechatronics Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_qfTAJ_5BI — Octoping · prototype in motion ## 01 · INSIGHT ### The thing missing wasn't more bandwidth. **FIELDWORK** I spoke with eight couples in long-distance relationships. The recurring theme wasn’t loneliness in the abstract — it was the loss of incidentaltouch. The hand on the shoulder. The arm thrown across the bed. The signals that don’t need a sentence. **REFRAME** Designing another chat affordance felt like a non-answer. The right intervention had to be physical, ambient, and held in the hand — not opened on a screen. The octopus form gave me a creature that invites touch by shape alone, with enough articulation to mirror a gesture without trying to imitate the human body. _Figure: Companion in the hand_ ## 02 · EXPRESSIONS ### Four moods, one body. - Happy - Mischievous - Sad - Angry ## 03 · MECHANISM ### String-actuated tentacles, ESP32 brain. **TENTACLES** Each of the eight tentacles is a flexible inner bowden tube, threaded with two nylon control strings. A modified servo motors with pulleys pull on the strings to control the tentacles like a puppeteer. The whole hand-feel is intentionally soft, warm, and a little bit alive. **BOND** An ESP32 in each companion publishes its touch and tentacle state to [OOCSI](https://oocsi.id.tue.nl/) (TU/e’s open IoT broker). The paired companion subscribes and replays the gesture with a tiny natural delay — enough for both sides to feel the exchange, not enough to feel laggy. _Figure: Tentacle mechanism — exploration_ ## 04 · USER TESTING - Hand interaction · usertest - Tentacle inner tubes _Figure: Companion pair at rest._ _Figure: Final demo day · January 2025._ ### True connection is not in the messages we send, but in feeling someone’s presence. --- # Beosound Focus > Speculative Bang & Olufsen desktop speaker, designed through close analysis of the brand's visual identity. Five-week CMU Product Design 3 study. - **Author:** Petr Dobias - **URL:** https://petrdobias.me/projects/beosound-focus - **Published:** 2026-07-05 - **Topics:** Sound, CMF Design, Surface Modelling, Design Language Analysis, Fusion 360, Keyshot > _PROJECT · BEOSOUND FOCUS_ > CMU · 51-343 Product Design 3 Studio · December 2023 ## OVERVIEW ### “Understand the brand before designing the product” Designed in five weeks for Carnegie Mellon University’s Product Design 3 Studio. The form is sculpted around its acoustic intent: a continuous housing wraps two forward-facing drivers, with materials and detailing chosen to read as B&O from across a room.After finalizing the design, I studied acoustics and audio electronics to create a fully functional Hi-Fi speaker that now acts as a stereo setup in my apartment. (Not affiliated with Bang & Olufsen.) **Project details** - **Course:** 51-343 Product Design 3 Studio - **Institution:** Carnegie Mellon University - **Type:** Individual project - **Duration:** ~5 weeks - **Finished:** December 2023 - **Disciplines:** Sound, CMF Design - **Methods:** Surface Modelling, Design Language Analysis - **Tools:** Fusion 360, Keyshot _Figure: 01 · Functional prototype · serving as home audio_ ## 02 · LANGUAGE → FORM _Brand-language analysis · resulting hero render_ ## 03 · INSPIRATION → CONCEPTS _Figure: 04 · CMF + detail · CNC aluminium meeting woven textile_ _Figure: 05 · In context · desktop scale_ _Figure: Final critique · CMU School of Design_ ### A speculative B&O speaker, designed brand-first. --- # Tempestio > A smart chandelier that brings the experience of upcoming weather into the home — and serves as an alarm for extreme weather events. - **Author:** Petr Dobias - **URL:** https://petrdobias.me/projects/tempestio - **Published:** 2026-07-05 - **Topics:** User Experience, Smart Home Device, More-Than-Human-Centered, ESP32, Fusion 360, 3D Printing > _PROJECT · TEMPESTIO_ > TU/e · Project 2 · New Futures · January 2023 **Project details** - **Course:** Project 2 · New Futures - **Institution:** TU/e · Industrial Design - **Group:** Petr Dobiáš, Emma de Boer, Savanne Noijons - **Duration:** ~15 weeks - **Finished:** January 2023 - **Disciplines:** User Experience, Smart Home Device - **Methods:** More-Than-Human-Centered - **Tools:** ESP32, Fusion 360, 3D Printing ## OVERVIEW ### When the sky is calm, it’s still a chandelier. Tempestio is a smart chandelier that warns its household about incoming extreme weather — hail, thunderstorms, heatwaves — through rumbling sound, striking light, and slow fabric motion.When the sky is calm, it’s still a chandelier. When a storm is on its way, the room knows before anyone has looked outside. Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8c3cDLdvX0 — Tempestio · chandelier in motion ## 01 · Process A semester-long Y2 project with Emma de Boer and Savanne Noijons, inside TU/e’s ‘New Futures’ squad — the design group oriented around long-horizon, multi-modal, multi-stakeholder problems. What follows is a condensed walk through how we got here. ## 02 · Focus Our brief was ‘Servicing the Smart Home’. We mapped the possible service spaces, then mapped our own interests against them, looking for the overlap. ## 03 · Weather Weather, we realised, is information the house should feel before anyone reads about it. The design goal narrowed: inform the inhabitant of upcoming natural hazards through aesthetic, non-interactive home objects. ## 04 · Communication The object had to read at eye level, work for everyone in the room, and stay useful when nothing was happening. We considered a piano, a teapot, a lamp. A chandelier won on all three counts. ## 05 · Related work Tempescope replays the forecast in a glass box of water. Shylighthangs and breathes in the Rijksmuseum. We wanted both — physical weather, performed by an object that’s alive in the room. ## 06 · Form Few rules on the chandelier’s form, one constraint: every concept had to move. We sketched widely, then built quick foam models to test what the volumes felt like in the air. The standout: a chandelier whose fabric is the light diffuser and the weather effect. To make that work, the fabric had to move. _Figure: Stand-out concept · chandelier with moving fabric_ ## 07 · Fabric We tested fabrics until we found one that moved right — light enough to drift, silky enough to read as weather. A vertical tugging motion was chosen for the mechanism. ## 08 · Final shape Three rings of different diameters, floating one above the next, all sloping inward. The top ring holds mechanics and electronics; the middle holds light; the bottom holds the fabric. _Figure: Three rings · inward-facing slope_ _Figure: Final shape · with outer curvature_ From below, the light sources sit in groups of five. Odd numbers read better in circles — flower-blossom logic. _Figure: Five-fold light arrangement_ ## 09 · Manufacturing Modelling is easy. Manufacturing is the work. The rings split into hollow sections that bolt together; each section has a snap-fit cover. The whole device is 3D-printable. ## 10 · Electronics ESP32 + relay + servo + speaker + step-down + LEDs, all stuffed inside the top ring. Wi-Fi on board, so it’s controllable remotely via a web-server interface. ## 11 · Final CAD The prototype matches the CAD almost wire-for-wire. With wiring aside, Tempestio is fully reproducible from these files. _Figure: Final CAD model_ ## 12 · Behaviour The LEDs run on FastLED — rain droplets, lightning, ambient pulses. The chandelier doubles as a platform for room mood. _Figure: Lighting effect · prototype_ ## 13 · User testing Four qualitative interviews. Each participant described a recent extreme-weather scenario, then replayed it with Tempestio imagined in the room. The behaviour shifts were telling. _Figure: User-testing session_ ### The home doesn’t need another screen. It needs more weather. References — Shylight. Studio Drift. (2023, February 14). Retrieved from studiodrift.com/work/shylightProject Tempescope. (2022, November 10). Retrieved from tempescope.com --- # Arcee > An Arduino-powered roaming robot that drives around and avoids obstacles — a three-week experiment in creative electronics at TU/e. - **Author:** Petr Dobias - **URL:** https://petrdobias.me/projects/arcee - **Published:** 2026-07-05 - **Topics:** Robotics, Creative Electronics, Electronics, 3D Printing, Arduino, Fusion 360 > _PROJECT · ARCEE_ > TU/e · DBB200 Creative Electronics · April 2022 ## OVERVIEW ### A small robot whose only purpose is to wander. Arcee was a three-week study in building something that just moves. An Arduino-driven chassis with ultrasonic sensors, a custom 3D-printed shell, and a tiny piezo that chirps when the path ahead is clear. No app, no screen, no remote — just a wandering object that responds to the room.The point was the loop: write code, print a part, watch it bump into a chair, iterate. **Project details** - **Course:** DBB200 Creative Electronics - **Institution:** TU/e · Industrial Design - **Type:** Individual project - **Duration:** ~3 weeks - **Finished:** April 2022 - **Disciplines:** Robotics, Creative Electronics - **Methods:** Electronics, 3D Printing - **Tools:** Arduino, Fusion 360 ## 01 · DEMO Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Lv18fxMCVo — Arcee navigating its first room. Demo recorded April 2022. ## 02 · RENDERS - Arcee render — high contrast - Arcee render — film grain - Arcee photograph _Figure: Project poster · DBB200 Creative Electronics_ ### The first time my code moved something physical, I stopped treating electronics as theory. --- # Steel Ball Machine > Interconnected mechanisms forming a machine that moves 20 mm steel balls in a continuous loop. A first-year exercise in creative mechanical design. - **Author:** Petr Dobias - **URL:** https://petrdobias.me/projects/steelballmachine - **Published:** 2026-07-05 - **Topics:** Creative Mechanical Design, Engineering, Exact Constraint Design, Fusion 360, 3D Printing, Laser Cutting > _PROJECT · STEEL BALL MACHINE_ > TU/e · DBB111 Creative Mechanical Design · January 2022 ## OVERVIEW ### A linkage of mechanisms that won't sit still. Twenty-millimetre steel balls picked up, lifted, dropped, and looped back to the start by an Archimedes screw, a pivoting catch, a ramp, and a gravity return. Every joint was sketched on paper, cut on a band-saw, drilled with hand tools, and assembled in my dorm.The brief was: build something that does a thing. Mine does one thing forever. **Project details** - **Course:** DBB111 Creative Mechanical Design - **Institution:** TU/e · Industrial Design - **Type:** Individual project - **Duration:** ~6 weeks - **Finished:** January 2022 - **Disciplines:** Creative Mechanical Design, Engineering - **Methods:** Exact Constraint Design - **Tools:** Fusion 360, 3D Printing, Laser Cutting ## 01 · IN MOTION Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpPHrqaMz_w — The full loop, running uninterrupted. ## 02 · BUILD ### From bench to finished linkage. - Cutting parts - Lower assembly - Mid-build - Catch + ramp - Completed ## 03 · CAD - Fusion 360 CAD overview - Fusion 360 CAD detail ### Mechanisms have a logic all their own — and only forgive you in the last 5 mm. --- # Miniature Artillery > A Processing simulation of an artillery gun paired with a 3D-printed miniature that fires steel balls accordingly. First-year creative-programming project. - **Author:** Petr Dobias - **URL:** https://petrdobias.me/projects/artillery - **Published:** 2026-07-05 - **Topics:** Creative Programming, Physical Computing, Physics Simulation, Programming, Processing, Arduino, Fusion 360, 3D Printing > _PROJECT · MINIATURE ARTILLERY_ > TU/e · DBB100 Creative Programming · November 2021 ## OVERVIEW ### When the simulation tells the cannon where to aim. A Processing sketch simulates a projectile under gravity and wind; the user picks elevation and charge with sliders. The same numbers are then dialled into a 3D-printed miniature cannon that fires a 9 mm steel ball at the predicted target.The interesting part wasn’t the ballistics — it was watching the physical world come within a few centimetres of the screen prediction. **Project details** - **Course:** DBB100 Creative Programming - **Institution:** TU/e · Industrial Design - **Type:** Individual project - **Duration:** ~4 weeks - **Finished:** November 2021 - **Disciplines:** Creative Programming, Physical Computing - **Methods:** Physics Simulation, Programming - **Tools:** Processing, Arduino, Fusion 360, 3D Printing ## 01 · DEMO Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IH3hjlhN0_Y — Simulation alongside the physical cannon firing. _Figure: The 3D-printed cannon, alongside its Processing twin._ ### Code that predicts the real world is the most satisfying kind of code. --- # InfraHeat > An infrared heater that uses object recognition to keep a home inhabitant warm at low cost — a TU/e engineering-design course project. - **Author:** Petr Dobias - **URL:** https://petrdobias.me/projects/infraheat - **Published:** 2026-07-05 - **Topics:** Engineering Design, Sustainability, Computer Vision, Product Architecture, Multidisciplinary Team, ESP32, Fusion 360, 3D Printing > _PROJECT · INFRAHEAT_ > TU/e · 4WBB0 Engineering Design · November 2022 ## OVERVIEW ### Heat the person, not the room. InfraHeat is a ceiling-mounted infrared heater that aims at the person — not the room. A camera with on-device object recognition tracks where the inhabitant is sitting; an articulated head re-points the heating element to follow.The argument: a household running an air-conditioned heat pump spends thousands of watts to keep an empty kitchen at twenty degrees. Spot heating uses tens. Designed in the middle of the 2022 European energy crisis, when the brief practically wrote itself. **Project details** - **Course:** 4WBB0 Engineering Design - **Institution:** TU/e · Industrial Design - **Type:** Group project - **Duration:** ~8 weeks - **Finished:** November 2022 - **Disciplines:** Engineering Design, Sustainability - **Methods:** Computer Vision, Product Architecture, Multidisciplinary Team - **Tools:** ESP32, Fusion 360, 3D Printing ## 01 · DEMO Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aG0KtPMtOvk — Prototype demo — tracking and re-aiming. ### Sometimes the right answer is to aim less energy, not generate more. --- # Spotted > An intelligent parking-garage system designed to improve the experience of parking in busy areas — a TU/e Smart Cities project. - **Author:** Petr Dobias - **URL:** https://petrdobias.me/projects/spotted - **Published:** 2026-07-05 - **Topics:** User-Centered Design, System Design, Interaction Design, IoT, Service Design, Fusion 360, 3D Printing, Laser Cutting > _PROJECT · SPOTTED_ > TU/e · Project 1 · Smart Cities · June 2022 ## OVERVIEW ### Parking, without the circling. Spotted is an intelligent parking-garage system that uses sensors to map free spots in real time, surfaces them on a glanceable display on each level, and routes drivers down the shortest path to an available space. No more circling, no more hunting the next floor.Built in a team for the Smart Cities studio at TU/e — first-year, first taste of designing for systems, not just objects. **Project details** - **Course:** Project 1 · Smart Cities - **Institution:** TU/e · Industrial Design - **Type:** Group project - **Duration:** ~15 weeks - **Finished:** June 2022 - **Disciplines:** User-Centered Design, System Design, Interaction Design - **Methods:** IoT, Service Design - **Tools:** Fusion 360, 3D Printing, Laser Cutting _Figure: System overview — sensor mesh, per-floor display, route guidance._ ## 01 · BUILD - Prototype build photo 1 - Prototype build photo 2 - Prototype build photo 3 - Prototype build photo 4 _Figure: Display mockup as it would appear at the head of a parking row._ _Figure: Project poster · Smart Cities studio_ ### A small UX problem can hide a system-sized intervention. ---