Workshop in Chicago at MWUX


A question that keeps running through my mind is what is the proper context for a Workshop on Creating Musical Instruments with new technology? Most might answer with a music school or university and others might say a place where people study electronics and engineering, but personally, coming from a UX and Interaction Design background equips me with just the right blend of strategizing, making, testing skills to create instruments. That’s exactly why I decided to facilitate my workshop at the Midwest UX in Chicago in October 2018.

Even though it wasn’t a typical UX workshop and was really more about what ‘sketching with hardware’ might be like for UX designers, I am appreciative that the team deciding on submissions at this conference were willing to pick a more daring topic for a workshop. The interest in the workshop was great and I capped the workshop off at 12 participants.

Explaining the levels of communication happening in the Sonic Interaction Kit. See diagram for a better explanation (than my hands)
A brief interlude with Teenage Engineering’s Pocket Operators
Finally getting to program on the Pi using PureData
It was great to have some of the participants help out as teaching assistants

Here are some of the photos from the workshop. The next step would be to properly document some of the final prototypes with video. Next time.


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