(and Sound) of SiMPE: Showcasing Outcomes of a Mobile Audio Programming Seminar

As contemporary smartphones become ubiquitous, their nature changes from mere function to a tool for self- expression, creativity, or play. Mobile application development embraces this change, as evidenced by the popularity and profits of sound and music applications and games in various application stores. As proposed in the ACM Curriculum report, these application domains are attractive in education, especially in computer science and interaction design. The main question is how to systematically integrate the rapidly evolving knowledge, know-how, tools, and techniques of mobile (audio) programming and interaction design into university curricula. In this paper, we provide an account of our own development and teaching experience. We highlight the outcomes, which are exploratory applications challenging the state-of-the-art in mobile application development based on non-speech sound. The positive assessment of the participants and the appreciation of data providers are among the results that encourage in future development. Yet, there is room for improvement in combining the technical development with the design practices and user studies.