INFO>CV

I recommend downloading the pdf version. The content is the same as the online version below:

Contact

pete [at] peteinfo [dot] com

Research Interests

Tangible User Interfaces, Digital Musical Instruments, Embodied Interaction, Design Theory, Interaction Design.

Education

Queen’s University Belfast Sept. 2006 to Present
- PhD, Sonic Arts Research Centre
  - Thesis Title: The Representation and Control of Time in Tangible User Interfaces (Designing Musical Instruments for the Manipulation of Temporal Media)
  - Research Topics: Tangible User Interfaces, Embodied Interaction, TemporalDigital-Media, Digital Musical Instrument Design, Design Theory.
  - Supervisors: Dr. Sile O’Modhrain, Dr. Roger Woods
  - Projects: BeatBearing, a tangible rhythm sequencer; DAMPER, a physical-effort instrument and Air-Record, an augmented record interface.
University of Brighton
- MA, Design by Independent ProjectSept. 2005 to Sept. 2006
  - Topic: Exploration of multimodal interaction in digital musical instruments.
  - Project: PETECUBE, a series of musical cubes designed to provide the user with multiple sensory modalities of feedback. - The MA was completed as a transfer from the PGDip in Digital Media Art.
- PGDip, Digital Media Art Sept. 2004 to Sept. 2005
  - Modules: Multimedia authoring and web design, interactive audio-visual, digital media in social and learning environments, critical and media concepts
  - Projects: Two installations were created during the year: TIDA and Bliptronic3000
University of Reading Sept. 2000 to July 2004
- MEng, Cybernetics
  - Graduated with 2:1
  - Prizes: “Best Part IV Project” (sponsored by Nortel Networks) & “A Novel Contribution to Haptic Technology” (external examiners commendation)
  - Modules included: Electronic Engineering, Event-driven Programming, Engineering Mathematics, Control & Measurement, Information & Signal theory, Object-Orientated Design & Programming, Neural Networks, Engineering De- sign & Business Studies, Computer Controlled Feedback Systems, Mechatronic & Measurement Systems, Machine Intelligence, Virtual Reality, Robotics, Bionics, Advanced Control and the Dynamic Theory of Mind.
  - Project: 4th year project involved designing and constructing a haptic interface for a virtual drum-kit, allowing the user to feel the virtual drums. This involved mechanical, electronic and control engineering.

Academic Experience

Queen’s University Belfast
- Assessment of Laboratory Platform April 2010
  - Assessing the suitability of National Instruments’ ‘Elvis’ educational design and prototyping platform for use in first-year undergraduate electronic engineering labs.
- Graduate Student Consortium TEI’10 Feb. 2010
  - Presented a summary of PhD work at the TEI’10 Graduate Student Consortium.
- Workshop at TWEAK digital art festival Sept. 2008
  - Workshop organised and run in collaboration with Michael Gurevich and addressed the concept of style in interaction systems.
  - Physical Sketching was used to explore style in interaction design. - Workshop led to collaboration on a paper published in the NIME’09 conference.
- Teaching Assistant Jan. to May 2008
  - Computer Programming for Musical Applications 1 (MTE1007)
  - Topics: Audio programming in MaxMSP including event generation and processing, and sound synthesis and programming.
- Lab Assistant Feb. to April 2008
  - Digital Systems Lab 2 (ELE2001)
  - Topics: Combinational logic design, sequential logic design, design using multiple output networks including FPGAs.
- Lab Assistant Jan. to March 2007
  - Communications and Information Systems 2 (ELE2007)
  - Topics: Communication system fundamentals including modulation and demodulation, both analogue and digital.

Professional Experience

Animazoo Motion Capture, Brighton, UK Nov. 2004 to July 2006
- Production Manager & Engineer
  - Animazoo designs and manufactures novel motion-capture hardware.
  - The job involved fabrication of motion capture suits, implementing design improvements, managing the workshop, and demonstrating the use of the suits.
  - Progressed with company from garage start-up, through Sussex University’s Innovation Centre, to current headquarters.

Conference Publications

Bennett P. “The Representation and Control of Time in Tangible User Interfaces (Summary of PhD Research)” TEI’10, Proceedings of the 4th international conference on Tangible, Embedded and Embodied Interaction, Cambridge, MA, 2010
Gurevich, M., Stapleton, P. & Bennett, P. “Designing for Style in New Musical Interactions” NIME ’09 Proceedings of the 9th international conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression, Pittsburgh, 2009
Bennett, P. & O’Modhrain, S. “The BeatBearing: a Tangible Rhythm Sequencer” Proceedings of NordiCHI 2008: 5th Nordic Conference on Computer-Human Interaction, 2008
Bennett P., O’Modhrain, S. “Towards Tangible Enactive-Interfaces” ENACTIVE’07, Grenoble, 2007
Bennett, P., Ward, N.; O’Modhrain, S. & Rebelo, P. “DAMPER: A Platfrom for Effortful Interface Development” NIME ’07: Proceedings of the 7th international conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression, New York, 2007
Bennett, P. “PETECUBE: a multimodal feedback interface” NIME ’06: Proceedings of the 2006 conference on New interfaces for musical expression, IRCAM, Centre Pompidou, 2006

Magazine Publications

Bennett P. “BeatBearing Rhythm Sequencer”, instructions on how to make your own BeatBearing, MAKE Magazine vol.17, O’Reilly Media.

Websites

PhD Blog: http://petes-sonic-art-research.blogspot.com/
Homepage: http://www.peteinfo.com
BeatBearing Project: http://www.beatbearing.co.uk

Software Skills

Expert in: MaxMSP, Processing, Ableton Live, Adobe Illustrator.
Confident in: Flash and Actionscript, Final Cut Pro, Dreamweaver, LaTex.
Experience with: C++, Java, Javascript, Photoshop.

Skills

Design, Physical Sketching and Prototyping, Drawing, Photography, Electronics, Arduino.

Interests

Music–composing/playing/improvising/performing/listening, cycling, swimming, surfing, synthesisers.

References

Sile O'Modhrain and Roger Woods