Research Colloquium at SFU’s School of Interactive Arts and Technology in Surrey presents

Alissa Antle and Halil Erhan

SIAT faculty presenters

Wednesday January 10, 2007 at 1:30 pm

Room 3875, SFU Surrey Campus, third floor Central City Tower in the Research Labs

Alissa Antle abstract

Dr. Alissa Antle will discuss her research which explores the development of tangibles and mixed reality environments that support the underlying processes of children's cognitive development. Alissa’s current research program builds on her recent work adapting methods from human computer interaction to children and investigating how cognitive and embodied processes can be used to design highly interactive environments. By embedding sensors in everyday objects, tracking the movement of these objects, and using them as controls for the display of images and sounds that help to explain real world phenomena, she creates situations where children can successfully make the transition through the stages of cognitive development. This type of early stage research, which grounds the development of new technologies in understandings of perceptual, cognitive and embodied processes, is a critical precursor to the intelligent and human centred development of sensor-based tangibles and other mixed reality environments. Alissa will conclude her talk with some playful demonstrations of her previous industry work.

Bio: Alissa Antle, B.A., B.A. Sc., Ph.D.

Dr. Alissa Antle is an assistant professor in the School of Interactive Arts and Technology. Her research interests include the design and evaluation of interactive media and mixed reality for play and informal learning. Before joining SFU, Alissa ran her own consulting company specializing in the development of convergent media experiences for children. She was the executive producer and creative director of the CBC4Kids.ca redevelopment which included the first North American fully integrated television and web based show targeted to children, Spy Kids. Alissa has also worked with clients including CBC Children’s Television, CBC Radio 3, Studio B Productions’ Yvon of the Yukon (Y TV) and Mimi (CBC) series, Pop6 Media’s Inuk cartoon series (ABC) and Vancouver’s Arts Umbrella Digital Media Program. Before setting out on her own she was the senior producer at Brainium Technologies overseeing the design and development of award winning productions including Science Brainium; Science World’s Seeing is Believing and Dogzilla Versus the Carbonator; Rick Hansen Kids; and Pearson’s interactive science series. She has served as an advisor for NASA’s Online Learning Program and sat on the board of the Canadian Wired Women Society.

Alissa’s work has been recognized by organizations including the Canadian New Media Awards, New Media Invision Awards (GOLD), Parent’s Choice Foundation, SIIA Codie Awards, Macromedia Site of the Day, Flash Forward, Netscape Cool Sitings, Family Corner. com Fun Site and Educating.net Cool Site.

In her spare time, Alissa hangs out with her boys Levi and Aden and dreams of a world without email.

Alissa Antle SIAT website

Halil Erhan abstract

From conception to making of RaBBiT: Is it fun to design systems?

My answer is ‘it depends’, and to me, there is no any other answer to this. I guess we need to ask another question then, ‘depends on what’? This presentation will have two parallel streams (processes if you will). In the first stream, I would like to share my experiences in developing RaBBiT, a design requirements modeling tool. During the presentation, I will introduce the rationale in requirements modeling, conceptualization of a framework for this domain, and a problem-solving approach developed. Using the knowledge gained from this process, I will talk about ‘features’ and ‘functions’ of a design support system for requirements modeling. I will discuss how a solution could accommodate the features and functions by demonstrating a case using RaBBiT. In parallel to this, in the second stream, I will request the audience to participate in a ‘small’ system design exercise and answer the question ‘what makes system development fun or not’. During the exercise the audience will form small groups and given about four five-minutes sessions to work on a ‘system design’ problem which will be presented at the beginning of the presentation. The presentation won’t last more than it is scheduled, trust me. It will be fun… or not! We will see.

Bio: Halil Erhan, PhD

Halil Erhan received his BArch degree from Middle East University in Turkey. During his Masters study at Clemson University, he investigated 3D Model integration in representing building design and construction information. As a result of this study, he became interested in Design Computation. He pursued this interest in his PhD study at Carnegie Mellon University. The topic of his thesis related to interactive design requirements specification. Before he joined the SIAT, he was an assistant professor of Software Engineering in the College of Information Technology, UAE University.

His research interests span from design of complex systems and design cognition to software engineering strategies and education. Particularly, he concentrates on generative aspects of complex systems developed for supporting wide spectrum of design activities. He studies ‘design’ as complex problem-solving and currently focuses on modeling and representing ‘design problem’ specifications for the iterative and incremental design process models. His domains of interest are ‘architectural’ and ‘software’ design.