Students get Interactive with Arduino

BA (Hons) Interactive Design were delighted to welcome back two of their recent graduates, John Revel (pictured below) and  Joan Planas, who came back from their native Spain to deliver a fascinating workshop in Arduino.

The workshop was given to level 2 and 3 current students, and was designed as an introduction to this exciting and innovative hardware, covering basic programming in Arduino and processing code.

Arduino is an open-source electronics prototyping platform based on flexible, easy-to-use hardware and software.  It's intended for artists and designers and anyone interested in creating interactive objects or environments (Arduino website), which is intrinsic to Interactive Design.

During the course of the 2 day workshop, students produced mini synthesizers and sound reactive lights, as well as pressure pads to detect weight, and motion sensors. All of this will feed directly into the projects of levels 2 and 3.

As the workshop took place during November, the above image shows Programme Leader Clive McCarthy's Arduino take on Movember!

So successful was this workshop, the first of the current season of visiting lecturers from industry, that John and Joan will be returning to continue the workshop in the new year.

Interactive Design will be exhibiting work with Arduino at next year's Kinetica Arts Fair in London 27 Feb - 3 March 2013.

Jewellery and Object students host their first Christmas sale

Students across all 3 years of our BA (Hons) Jewellery and Object programme have shown their entrepreneurial skills by hosting their first ever Christmas market sale across the Brayford campus this week.

Over the past few weeks they have been spending every spare moment designing and crafting a whole range of jewellery items to raise money for their Degree Show next summer.  Early indications show that they have been very successful.

Items include earrings, brooches, necklaces, some of which have a rather apt festive flavour to them.  You can even buy items inspired by their recent Upcycling project, such as the Nespresso coffee capsule bangles (seen here below), which they displayed both at the Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven in October, and at both UCAS Design Your Future fairs in Manchester and London last month.

In fact two of the students, third year Emma Clark, and second year Fiona Parkinson (seen above with Programme Leader Dr Sarah O'Hana), attended the Manchester event, and were actually busy making some of the festive brooches on the stand.  Visitors and fellow exhibitors alike were very curious to see what was going on and all commented how lovely it was to see students actually "making things".

The above images show Emma cutting out her design on the copper by hand.

The Christmas sale continues today in the Architecture building on the Brayford campus, 11-3.

Arslan Elver of PrimeFocus talks to Animation students

Arslan Elver, lead animator at Prime Focus and a mentor at Animation Mentor, recently delivered a master class in character and creature animation for current students of both BA (Hons) Animation in the School of Art and Design and students of BA (Hons) Media Production within the sister School of Media.

As well as sharing his experiences and working practices in projects such as Narnia, Golden Compass and Harry Potter movies, Arslan covered a list of golden tips and tricks in ‘how to develop a show reel  and presented ‘A difficult but rewarding journey for getting the ultimate prize: landing a job in animation industry’.

Arslan’s visit was a success for students in terms of networking with industry professionals and setting a direction for  their own career path in animation and we look forward to him visiting us again.  

Arslan Elver’s background

June 2011 - Present - PrimeFocus Film, London
Mirror Mirror - Lead Animator

May 2006 - May 2011 - Framestore - Senior Animator
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I
Clash of Titans
Where The Wild Things Are
Primeval 3
The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
His Dark Materials: The Golden Compass
Walt Disney's Underdog