Product Sound Design Summer School, August 23-26 2010,  Aalto University,  Design Factory, Espoo, Finland

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NEW

• 20101004 Post-updates.The selection has been detailed.

Older updates:

• 20100827 The training school was successfully completed. A post-analysis is on the way.
• 20100812 Design activities all around Helsinki. Don't miss the  Helsinki Design Week (August 26-September 5). We especially recommend  Kalevelakehto.
• 20100622 The application period has ended.
• 20100609 More information on How we plan to use the application material
• 20100604 Organization significantly expanded. Related Training Opportunities now includes a follow-up workshop opportunity and the Helsinki Festival, in addition to the Interdisciplinary Product Development course. Other minor updates.

INTRODUCTION

Future products will rely on our natural capabilities of continuous and physical interaction. Moreover, for the best experience in their use, they need to stimulate, but not saturate, all our senses. Our sense of hearing is quite advanced; yet only a few product developers, engineers, marketing teams, and designers know how to make use of it properly. The COST-SID action, over the years, has developed a growing body of methods, tools, and techniques to get you started.

Our mission in this summer school was to educate the future product design and development team members with a specific competence on interactive sound. The training school was strategically positioned as a first step in a longer research and training on the integration of SID product sound design methods with  Product Design and Development, as thought at the Aalto University and MIT, for example.

Upon completing the summer school, the participants were able to

• use effective strategies for concept generation and communication regarding the usage of sound in future products,
• prototype and evaluate an interactive sonic product according to a scenario given by the partnering companies  HipUI and  Powerkiss
• earn 2 ECTS from the Aalto University.

Participants

There were 10 participants supported by our action, and 13 non-supported participants (Aalto students and participants attended own their own budget). They were selected out of 57 applicants by the relevance of their studies or research to the product sound design based on their application material consisting of

• a CV,
• a letter of motivation that clearly indicates the applicant's motivation, previous experience with interactive product sound design, and expectations from this training activity,
• an official transcript of completed and remaining studies.

The selection procedure has been outlined here.

Program

A preliminary program is as follows

Time	Day 1 (23.8) (Registration opens at 08:30)	Day 2 (24.8)	Day 3 (25.8)	Day 4 (26.8)
9:00	Welcome and introduction to the Product Sound Design Summer School, group formation	Product Development Project (Design Factory)	Groups	Groups
10:00	Design Factory concept and company presentations in relation to product sound design (Powerkiss and HipUI)	Narration and Performativity in Sonic Interactive Commodities (Daniel Hug)	Groups	Groups
11:00	Design themes and assignment (2 projects x 2 groups), Vocal Sketching for Early Prototyping with Sound (Michal Rinott and Inger Ekman)	Experience prototyping Workshop 1	Groups	Groups
12:00	Lunch break	Lunch break	Lunch break	Lunch break
13:00	Product Development in 6 hours (PD6) Workshop (Wycliffe Raduma)	Experience prototyping WS 1	Groups	Groups
14:00	PD6	Experience prototyping WS 1	Groups	Groups
15:00	PD6	Basic Exploration of Experience Prototyping with the Sound Design Toolkit (Stefano Delle Monache)	Groups	Groups
16:00	PD6	Experience prototyping Workshop 2	Groups	Presentation
17:00	PD6	Experience prototyping WS 2	Groups: Checkpoint Meeting with Evaluators	Feedback and evaluation
18:00	PD6	Experience prototyping WS 2	Groups	Goodbye

Organization

The summer school organizators include Dr. Sc. (Tech)  Cumhur Erkut, MA  Daniel Hug, MA (Laurea)  Stefano Delle Monache, M.Sc  Antti Jylhä, FM  Inger Ekman, Dr. Arts  Koray Tahiroğlu, and Prof.  Kalevi Ekman. In addition, many members of the Aalto Design Factory and the SID Action have actively worked on specific tasks.

Workshops

The workshop modules and related contact teaching was prepared and conducted by the instructors  Wycliffe Raduma (PD6), Daniel Hug (Narration and Performativity in Sonic Interactive Commodities and Experience prototyping Workshop 1), and Stefano Delle Monache (Basic Exploration of Experience Prototyping with the Sound Design Toolkit and Experience prototyping Workshop 2).

Tutors

The tutors provided individual guidance to the selected participants or groups.  Inger Ekman has organized the session "Vocal Sketching for Early Prototyping with Sound" on Day 1.  Frauke Behrendt has organized Sound Walks during the Experience prototyping Workshop 1.

Evaluators

The evaluators provided evaluative feedback and guidance during the group work at specified Checkpoint meetings. Our experienced evaluators were  Davide Rocchesso,  Sandra Pauletto,  Stephen Barrass, and Sylviane Sapir. In addition, Luis Gustavo Martins has provided expert feedback during the group work.

Related Training Opportunities

The training school was scheduled right after Helsinki Summer School ( HSS), and the Interdisciplinary Product Development Course ( IPD) within. There was a related workshop organized by  Koray Tahiroğlu and  Stephen Barrass, right after the summer school, on Friday, August 27. The details are at  http://mlab.taik.fi/~korayt/embeddedsounds/

Further Info

Please contact  Cumhur Erkut