51³Ô¹ÏÍø

SONICOM took part in the Royal Society's Summer Science Exhibition, engaging hundreds of people with immersive audio across the week.

From 4-9 July, SONICOM exhibited at the Royal Society’s Summer Science Exhibition 2023, one of the largest science engagement festivals in the UK.

As the Royal Society’s flagship event, the Summer Science Exhibition attracts thousands of visitors every year, from families with 4-year-olds to school groups to eminent Fellows of the Royal Society.

The ‘Virtual Audio: Illusion or Reality?’ exhibit led by Lorenzo Picinali, a member of the Audio Engineering Society, featured research projects from Picinali’s Audio Experience Design team at 51³Ô¹ÏÍø, including SONICOM and the NIHR-funded BEARS project.

The exhibit focused on how people and technology can adapt to each other to enhance virtual and physical interactions.

Visitors to the exhibit got the opportunity to learn about SONICOM through chats with members of the team and hands-on activities, including having their own ears 3D scanned to learn about how morphology needs to be taken into account when personalising audio.

“It was a lot of fun chatting to the public about our research and meeting incredibly interested people from all walks of life,” says Dr Katarina Poole, a SONICOM researcher based at 51³Ô¹ÏÍø. “There were a lot of discussions on how immersive audio could be used – why it’s not used, why it should be – which was good to expand my thinking on how my and the lab’s research could be used.”

Find out more about the research featured at the Exhibition on our .

You can also watch some of the highlights of the week in the video below: