May 16, 2007
Carleton University Industrial Design students Christianne LeBlanc, Jessica Livingston and Maarianne Goldberg were awarded the 1st place Judges Prize for the international Next-Gen PC Design Competition by Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates yesterday. The Carleton students will take home a $25,000 prize for their innovative design of a child-friendly computer.
An annual event, in collaboration with the Industrial Design Society of America (IDSA), the Microsoft Next-Gen PC Design Competition is held to encourage innovative PC designs, accepting entries from amateur, student and professional industrial designers. Selected from a host of international submissions, the Carleton University student designers created blok, a computer created with kindergarten-aged children in mind. Using classic toy building blocks as inspiration, the Carleton trio researched how children play, watching them interact with various objects.
The blok PC is designed to help children easily learn about numbers, letters, shapes, and symbols. Unlike conventional PC designs, the system was designed to encourage socialization with both teachers and peers, allowing users to interact as a group to solve problems.
“Children interact differently with computers than do adults,” said LeBlanc. “Our design is based upon intensive observation of very young children and what they would respond to best in an interactive learning tool.”
The design features two parts that fit together to form a cube, and open to reveal a toy chest inside. The design comes complete with two keyboard mats, digital markers, interactive shapes, as well as a microphone and a set of speakers. The markers give children an opportunity to draw, the keyboards facilitate teaching of the alphabet, and the microphone and speakers allow the child to use easy voice recognition software to work with the computer.
The students were encouraged by an associate professor at Carleton University’s School of Industrial Design in Ottawa, Canada, Jim Budd, to enter the Microsoft contest as part of a fourth-year class assignment.
There were 15 teams from Budd's class that submitted entries. Of that total, 10 went on to submit their designs, five of the teams were among the 34 finalists, and two were selected among the eight finalists.
“This latest international award is another testament to the very high quality of our Industrial Design program, and its outstanding faculty and students,” said Dr. Samy Mahmoud, Carleton University President pro tempore. “The entire Carleton University community is extremely proud of Christianne LeBlanc, Jessica Livingston, Maarianne Goldberg and their professor, Jim Budd, for their outstanding accomplishment. We congratulate this innovative team for bringing home such a prestigious international award.”
For a high resolution photo of the Carleton University students’ award-winning design, please visit
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/images/features/2007/05-15NextGen_02_lg.jpg
Image courtesy of Microsoft
Background
Carleton University’s renowned School of Industrial Design is an innovative trend-setter in the field of industrial design in Canada and most long-standing undergraduate program of its kind in Ontario.
For more information please contact:
Tanya Pobuda
Manager, Public Affairs
Carleton University
Ph: (613) 520-2600, ext. 1406
e-mail: tanya_pobuda@carleton.ca
