Hi there 👋

I'm Sigurd, a second year master student in the Interaction Design program at UQ 🎓. Prior to studying at UQ I did a bachelor's degree in International Marketing and also completed a diploma in Information Technology back in Norway. Over the last 10 years or so I have developed a natural curiosity for technology and I'm therefore intrigued by the contents of this course, given that we get more time to work on a project and a more hands-on approach.

My expectations for this course, amongst other, are to attain deeper knowledge in the field of mechatronics, learn to think about user experience in terms of physical products, and to build something awesome! 💪

💡In terms of my inspirations, there are too many to list; However, some relevant ones are: Maximilian Schwarzmuller from Academind, Chris Do from Blind Design, CJ from Coding Garden, Mark Rober former NASA engineer, Jinha Lee and Hiroshi Ishii from the Tangible Media Group at MIT, etc.

In this course I'm looking forward to taking a more hands-on approach building something 🛠 and spend more time working on aspects in the design process that often end up being overlooked due to time constraints of a two unit course. I'm eager to be able to focus on the little details and not just rinse and repeat what we've done in every other course prior to this.

With that said, I'm slightly concerned that a prolonged ideation phase will give us less time to work on the prototypes and that other assessment items will steal time and focus from the major project which often is the case. Moreover, I'm concerned that I will end up in a group where several members don't pull their own weight, which happens too often.

As we have mostly been focused on digital prototypes to this point, I'm aiming to achieve a level of competence in mechatronics which makes it just as easy to create a physical prototype as a digital one in future projects. 🤖Moreover, I hope time will allow for us to spend more time on making something I can be proud to present as we mostly run out of time before the prototype reaches a state where it is presentable.