W8 GURUS' DAY

This week we have Gurus' Day. Experienced guests came to see what issues we have as we progressed seven weeks into the honors years projects.

We were asked to prepare our cabinet which I find the difference in teaching between here and my home university. In such an occasion my home college would have unified requirements on how we present our work, usually a set of a very particular figure of the file they asked us to made. I found it tough to get used to the teaching method here, too much freedom too less criticize.

Notwithstanding, I made a three steps shift to present from people design and technology. Each step has a topic with little introduction boards on it. I put a guitar with pick shaped paper stuck on the string next to it, writing questions I wanted to ask. Just like how real picks stuck on the strings. There are also some DIY instruments I made in the previous week.

• In the people section:

I present some pictures I took when I was in that primary school in Yunnan province to give guests a general idea how their condition like.

Then I introduced the research I've done on children's cognition ability, manipulative ability and their motivation to study music.

• In the design section:

I presented design requirements I need to meet after my research, which is affordable, durable and easy to learn. Research about musical instruments likes vocalism principle and classifying are also shown. Along with thoughts about how to make it easier to learn. For now, I've found and mapping the notations may help beginners get started promptly. A game like it may motivate them. Another fortunate fact is regardless how poor the primary school I went kids still can get the internet directly which make self-study more possible. I also need to consider toning problem as they may have difficulty in doing that.

• My questions included:

1. What effect the desire of self- motivated learning, is it possible for kids at the age of 10? 2. Learning a musical instrument can cost a lot of efforts, what is the balance between inspiration and skill training on my project? 3. What is the balance between inspiration and skill training? 4. How materials affect the tone?

I was very fortunate to be able to speak with four Gurus, and they were: Fraser Bruce, Steve Birnie, Craig Murdo, David Hill. They gave me many valuable pieces of advice.

• To sum up:

1. User research:

I was planning to do remote user research as I can't find quality users here in Scotland. But the feasibility was questioned. Some Gurus suggest I change my target user. There've been a discussion about what I want to achieve through this product. Replace of sending a musical instrument to them and hoping somehow they can learn it themselves and have fun as kids in the metropolis. Is teaching them read music is what I want? If so that would be easier to design a learning pack for teachers. Adults can teach themselves first; then they can teach kids there.

2. The motivation for kids to learn music:

Imitation idol, have fun, sense of accomplishment, feelings of control, goal driven (e.g. a settled future performance ), quick results. Quick results is a valuable point I'll try to focus on that.

3. About musical instruments:

Invent a musical instrument can be laborious so trying to improve one maybe the best choose. The size of the instrument should be moderate as I need it to be transported, I should also consider cost in this progress. Wind instrument meet my need the best, to minor the space I can try to make it foldable. At the same time, it doesn't need to be tone. Is it disposable?

I'll think about my user location again at the same time keep investigated in improvised children and musical instruments.