Student audio projects receive awards at prestigious competitions

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AGH UST students have received as many as four awards at prestigious international audio competitions: Student Design Competition and Student Recording Competition.

Daniel Krause has earned the Gold Award at the Design Competition for his work on Spectral Contrast-Based Feature Extraction Algorithm for Acoustic Event Classification, in which he presented a new algorithm for extraction of features from acoustic signals. The methodology based on machine learning algorithms has been developed with the aim of finding a universal representation for the whole variety of sounds observed in nature and human environment, which would allow for effective training of models for autonomous classification of acoustic events. A series of conducted experiments has shown that the algorithm developed by Mr Krause outperforms many other, commonly used methods. The project was supervised by dr inż. Konrad Kowalczyk.

The Silver Award at the same event went to Adam Szwajcowski for his study into Design of Harmonic Drum by Means of Shape Optimization, whose aim was to modify the shape of drum membrane in a way that would allow production of harmonic sounds – that is: those with a precisely determined pitch. The research made use of a proprietary method of drum sound synthesis and optimisation algorithms based on animal herd behaviours. The result was a design of an instrument characterised by unique sound, preserving the drum’s articulatory potential and design simplicity. The project was developed under the scientific supervision of DSc Adam Pilch.

The Grand Jury of Student Design Competition chose Kamil Piotrowski and his Interactive Sound Pressure Distribution Application – an application for sound simulations and analyses - to receive the Bronze Award. The author of the work has emphasized ease of use, speed of calculations and real-time output visualisation. The application consists of several modules, which together constitute  comprehensive and autonomous technical software for simulation of e.g. sound wave diffraction on objects of various shapes or when passing through a barrier. The project follows up the Bachelor thesis on sound scattering submitted by Kamil Piotrowski. The research was completed under scientific supervision of DSc Adam Pilch.

The Bronze Award in the Sound for Visual Media Category at the Student Recording Competition went to Barbara Kapica, who created a complete soundtrack (sound and synchronic effects) for a sci-fi animation entitled ‘Awareness of the Doll’ by Michał Wójcicki. The student used sounds from her personal collection and combined them with pre-recorded, properly processed effects, which served as an acoustic complement for the animation to make up a total and coherent artistic whole.

The winners in all competitions are students of Acoustic Engineering at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Robotics. The authors of award-winning projects at the Student Design Competition are members of AGH UST Architectural Acoustics Academic Society, while Barbara Kapica represents AGH UST Acoustic Engineering Academic Society.

The costs of student participation at AES Conference and the accompanying competitions were covered from a grant received under the Najlepsi z Najlepszych 3.0 Scheme.

The competitions open to students from all over the world were held in New York from 17 to 20 October 2018 during an international conference hosted by Audio Engineering Society (AES) – the world’s largest association of sound engineers. 

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