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AES144 Saul Walker Student Design Competition winner Interview: Bartlomiej Chojnacki

AES144 Saul Walker Student Design Competition winner Interview: Bartlomiej Chojnacki

 1) Tell us a little about yourself. Where are you from and what do you study?

 
My name is Bartlomiej Chojnacki, I’m master student in Noise in technics and environment course at AGH University of Science and Technology in Cracow, recently graduated in Acoustic engineering in the same university. Currently I’m finishing my master’s thesis to begin the PhD studies in acoustic engineering. Professionally I’m working as a operational director of acoustic treatment manufacturer Mega-Acoustic.

2) What initiated your passion for audio? When did it start? 
 
It has started with my first project on the 2nd year of my bachelor degree in the end of 2014. It was Marconi’s Spark Gap Radio, surprisingly – it worked. By this project I was awarded on local Students Scientific Conference, and then… many other project occurred, with my flagship project of Piezoelectric Omnidirectional Source and scale modeling in acoustics, which was awarded twice on previous Student Design Competition editions. Currently I’m an author of over 15 scientific publications and winner of many awards in the scale of Poland and international. I think my passion for audio was mainly supported by this additional project and very wide field of study with my courses on the university, also with the great support of educators. Brainstorming and workflow is the best catalyst for the scientific work.
 
 
3) Tell us about production of your submission? What is the story behind it? How long did you work on it? Was it your first entry? What kind of problem can it solve or improve?

This year I’ve submitted the project which was the basic tool used by myself in my master’s thesis, which was the room sound field scanner and the method for acoustic field analysis for the acoustic fault detection. It was first entry for this project, but it was developed about a year ago – all we need to prepare was correct method of analysis for the received data and validate the results. This is the main part of the engineering work- engineering mean calculation and validation… so it was about a year that took me to develop the project in the current status. It was designed to improve overall possibilities in sound field diffuseness and spatial quality estimation for rating quality in the qualified acoustic rooms like concert halls and studios, also it needs to be applicable on the designing process before launching the construction process. Fortunately, all this points was included and working in current project status.

http://www.aes-sda-media.org/media/Bartek_photos/144_interview/bartek_photo.JPG4) Did you considered commercializing your project? Are there any business or product possibilities?

This project has very big potential, but for now I don’t think about commercializing yet. This is quite early status and cannot be operated by no one than me because it still need a lot of documentation and validation. This is the problem with many DIY projects – they very often stop on the development process because later you need to provide instruction for it, which is not always the thing that students want to work… because it’s boring! And many of the project like that has very narrow recipients number, so the commercialization may not be profitable at all... comemercialization is a good idea for projects easy to develop with wide range of possible uses. Some of the inventions must be left as a pure science, like mine :( .

5) Do you know or consider any future steps? Will it be linked with the project you’ve presented?
 
My project presented in Milan was the early stage of the research I’m leading for a year and plan to lead in the next 3-4 years, also as the topic of my PhD thesis. Room sound field diffuseness estimation and its perception is very common topic in the field of room acoustic, so it will be definitely continued. The application of room sound field scanner itself need just small correction which will fix the bugs and allow better performance, especially the data export, but the project itself will be lead in more scientific, analytical and data collection way. In the closest future i plan to develop some papers and articles about this system, also including some reports about the prize it was awarded on AES in Milan! In my opinion, the succes is just 50% until you will make a report and promote it... no one cares about how big projects are you making until you let the world know them. The AES Design Competition is one of the places where it can be done best - provide the presentation of epic projects to the world.

6) Tell us about your favorite experiences at the 144th AES convention in Milan!

During the 144th Convention the best part was the casual students meetings next to the canal! First after the students party, later – anytime, casual and spontaneous, people was just arriving because they knew that other will be there for sure. Great party with great people, I’ve met many AES students that i haven’t know before.
 


Posted: Friday, August 24, 2018

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