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

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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 is to educate the future product design and development team members with a specific competence on interactive sound. The training school is 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 will be 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.

Target Participants

The target participants are 16-20 students in the last year of masters studies, or first two years of PhD studies in design, engineering, or economics. They will be selected by the relevance of their studies or research to the product sound design. We expect about half of the trainees to be Aalto students.

Application

The applicants should send,

  • 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,

all in Portable Document Format (PDF) to  Cumhur Erkut latest by Monday, June 21, 2010.

The summer school requires no registration fee. For the selected participants from outside of Finland, basic financial support about EUR 600 (TBC) that would cover the most economic travel and accommodation costs will be provided by the COST IC0601 Action SID.

How we plan to use the application material

Some potential applicants asked us how we will use the required material, especially the letter of motivation. Here are some thoughts on these:

  • We will start with an introduction on Day 1. This session will outline the structure of the summer school, its practices and goals. We would like to align these to your background: who you are, what you do, what your goals are, and what you will be able to do after this summer school towards your goals. All the material we ask will be used for this alignment.
  • The letter of motivation will help us to understand your expectations: are they well-aligned with the activities we will jointly do in the summer school? You still have a chance to influence some of the activities, and direct them more towards your goals, with the letter of motivation.
  • The letter of motivation is not a form we assess if you are suitable for this summer school.
  • We plan to make similar activities in the future. As the SID community, we are curious how our activities could be integrated in your curricula. Your transcript will help us in this, in addition to provide:
    • contact information where your credits will be addressed to,
    • consider and prioritize the applicants who are at the edge of graduation, and need the 2 ECTS more than others.

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 are actively working on specific tasks.

Workshops

The workshop modules and related contact teaching is 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 will provide individual guidance to the selected participants or groups.  Michal Rinott and  Inger Ekman organize the session "Vocal Sketching for Early Prototyping with Sound" on Day 1.  Frauke Behrendt organizes Sound Walks during the Experience prototyping Workshop 1.

Evaluators

The evaluators will provide evaluative feedback and guidance during the group work at specified Checkpoint meetings. Our experienced evaluators include  Davide Rocchesso,  Sandra Pauletto, and  Stephen Barrass.

Related Training Opportunities

The training school is scheduled right after Helsinki Summer School ( HSS), and the Interdisciplinary Product Development Course ( IPD) within. A longer time in Helsinki, in-depth studies of interdisciplinary product development, and 5 more ECTS could be beneficial for the participants. The interested students are encouraged to enroll and to attend to the HSS on their own budget.

There is 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/

Don't miss the  Helsinki Festival during your stay, and note that Friday, August 27 is the  Night of the Arts.

Accommodation and Travel Information

No specific accommodation arrangements are available at the moment, the participants need to arrange their accommodation. For budget accommodation, the following links might be useful:

For general travel information in Helsinki Area, please follow this  link.

Further Info

Please contact  Cumhur Erkut

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