Digital Futures and Pace Events: CMT Workshops at Middlesex University…

Published by mike on July 4th, 2011 - in Uncategorized

Last week on Wednesday 29th June and Friday 1st July, Middlesex University was running two events called Digital Futures and Digital Pace.

During these two events, there were two age groups (Year 10′s and Year 12′s) coming into the university to be given a selection of workshops from the different departments.

The workshop for the CMT department was run by myself (Michael Heeney) and IT & Networking graduate, Ahmed Karrar. We ran a total of 5 workshops on the two days, covering “Tangible computing” from the module “Novel Interactive Technologies”. The workshops can the students an insight into what software was around on the market today, what Middlesex are using and how they can be used.

The two pieces of software during the workshop were Processing and Reactivision. Both freeware, the software and tasks was also bundled onto disc for the students – enabling them to take their experience home with them.

The workshop by CMT seemed to be a success, with a large amount of interest from the students.

CMT also provided demonstrations on the day. These were provided by Leo Aristodemou, Aleem Amin and Agnieszka Golebiewska. These demonstations included: Aqua (Tangible projected children’s game), music manipulation via a P5 glove and Projected interaction with Scrabble and Angry Birds.

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The Who – “Tommy” Project at Middlesex

Published by mike on June 2nd, 2011 - in Multimedia
The Who play the famous album “Tommy” with help of Middlesex students
Staff and students at Middlesex University worked closely together to create video, animation and graphic visuals for the famous British rock band The Who. Students from Hendon and Cat Hill campuses worked closely together to create a set of visuals on their own interpretation of the bands album “Tommy”.

The project was fronted by Middlesex’s Creative Director in Residence, Colin Payne and was seen to be a big success by staff, students, fans and most notably, Roger Daltrey.

“Daltrey agreed and suggested that our students create new visuals for a gig at the Royal Albert Hall where he planned to revive The Who’s “Tommy” it suddenly became an epic and amazingly real challenge.”

The concert was a large success and all the money was generated for Teenage Cancer Trust on a series of perfomances throughout the week by different acts.

I worked closely with students in the CMT department to generate ideas, video edit draft presentations, provide technical support and be a communication link between Hendon and Cat Hill.

“Payne brought together students from across the university, helping them to collaborate using social media, downloading and discussing their ideas on a dedicated Facebook page. The Who’s lead singer said he was impressed by how the students applied the themes of Tommy to their world.”
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Haptic Exploration

Published by mike on May 16th, 2011 - in Haptics
Using the Haptic Master @ Middlesex
Third year students and year 10 students (during National Science week) have had the chance to interact with the novel and haptic technology known as the Haptic Master. 

The Haptic Master is a force controlled haptic interface used for a wide variety of tasks and research, including stroke rehabilitation. It provides the users “crisp” haptic feedback through the simulation of force. The device is connected to a desktop PC, where the users can see a 3D environment on the screen, which is controlled by the Haptic Master.

Students were able to use the Haptic Master in simple environments, controlling a cursor through a wireframe which included a solid table, ball and cube. When feeling the objects on the screen, the Haptic Master applies force to make the interaction on the screen real.

The Haptic Master is going to be used in a wider project at the Human Interactive Systems Lab @ Middlesex, where Dr Rui Loureiro is developing a system called ROBIN (Robitic Rehabilitation Technology).

“Recent studies on the clinical effect of robot-aided therapy have shown that substantial improvements in the short-term  are not transfering into such gains in higher level independence.  Further studies have shown that task-orientated participation can positively influence stroke recovery. It appears that optimisation of robotic rehabilitation on functional outcome should take into account exposures of the nervous system to real-life activities during therapy”.

For more information, please visit:

http://www.mdx.ac.uk/courses/robin.aspx
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