Summer Research Assistant: ThinkeringSpace MacArthur Foundation and Institute of Design, Illinois Institute of Technology
Position: Are you good at tinkering? One full-time research assistant position is available for June, July and August 2008 in the ThinkeringSpace project. We are looking for someone with both programming and design skills. The project will be situated at the Institute of Design, Illinois Institute of Technology. Research will be done primarily in the Chicago area. Evaluation Criteria for the Applicant: Background/Experience in HCI, Design Comfort working with a multidisciplinary team that includes educators and designers Programming Skills in C#, Java, ActionScript, Sockets, Event Driven Code, ActiveX Familiarity with design processes used in software engineering and industrial design. Research/Writing Skills such as diagramming and annotating systems, existing and proposed Prototyping/Hand Skills such as Soldering/Hot glue, etc About the Project: ThinkeringSpace is a hybrid system - made of networked and remotely accessible physical environments - that seeks to bring school-age children together to tinker with things, both physical and virtual, reflect upon what they do and discover, and elaborate their ideas in ways they can share with others. Funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Digital Media and Learning Initiative, it is focused on school-aged children in libraries, but potentially applies to a wide range of ages and contexts. During this summer, the ThinkeringSpace team is moving quickly toward a series of working prototypes that will be installed in two Metropolitan Chicago libraries this fall. These prototypes will run applications to provide a wide variety of collaborative activities for kids, supported by multi-input technologies. For more information about the project, visit our website at http://www.thinkeringspace.org. Application: If interested in applying for a position, please submit a 1-2 page description of interest and qualification. Project assistant candidates will be selected from the applications received, based on the best fit with project needs and goals, and finalists may be interviewed before the final selection is made. Deadline: June 2, 2008, 1:00 pm. Please forward the application document (PDF) to Dale Fahnstrom ([EMAIL PROTECTED]), Greg Prygrocki ([EMAIL PROTECTED]), T.J. McLeish ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) and Heloisa Moura ([EMAIL PROTECTED]). Salary: Commensurate with qualifications. Research Assistant Responsibilities: This summer, the applicant will assist with: Augmenting our current survey of existing off-the-shelf devices [including mice, keyboards, WiiMotes, dance pads and RFID tag readers]. Finding and/or developing low level systems which will manage multiple inputs of particular types. Current implementations use sockets and custom messaging for use with Flash and other prototyping toolkits. Finding existing applications which support multiple interface devices. Developing simple applications supporting collaborative interaction [as defined by the team] using Flash and other prototyping toolkits. Accomplishing the above leveraging existing open source efforts. Building an open source community around the goals of Thinkering Space. Before the Summer starts: The research assistant will be expected to be up to date with the content produced in the project so far, which is available on the Thinkering Spaces website. ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
