Hanna Dahl sharing the stage with a drone. Photo: Airi Lampinen.

“The Second Drone Arena Challenge challenged participants to move together with drones in beautiful, curious and provocative ways”, says associate professor Airi Lampinen, Department of Computer and Systems Sciences (DSV) at Stockholm University.

The challenge is a part of Digital Futures Drone Arena, an ongoing research collaboration which she co-leads together with Luca Mottola from RISE. The project features both technical work on drone technology and empirical research on human-drone interactions.

Eurovision song contest for drones

“The participating teams worked with our technical coaches over two days, culminating in a performance that was judged by a jury with expertise in choreography, aesthetics and drone interactions. The audience got to vote too, so in some ways this was like the Eurovision song contest for drones”, Lampinen says jokingly.

Airi Lampinen. Photo: Sophie Landwehr Sydow.

She explains that the challenge was run for two reasons. The first reason was to offer students and the public opportunities to familiarize themselves with the emerging drone technology – in a friendly setting and with plenty of support from experts. The second reason was to gather data about how people learn about drones and interact with them through movement.

“The participants came up with fascinating performances, piloting the drone not only with their hands but also their torsos and in one case even with the head! I personally only got to vote as part of the audience, but I was really happy when DSVibe, the team from DSV, was so well received and even won the audience vote”, says Airi Lampinen.

Hanna Dahl and Erik Lopez are the DSV students behind DSVibe.

Congratulations, Hanna and Erik! Tell us – who are you?

“Thank you! I’m in my second year of the Bachelor’s program in Digital Media. I’m not quite sure what I want to do after graduation, but I will probably work in something related to UX or front-end”, says Hanna Dahl.

Erik Lopez. Photo: Private.

“I’m completing a master’s degree in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) focused in Design for Creative and Immersive Technologies. This is my last semester as I’m currently working on my thesis project. After graduating, I plan to go back to my hometown in the United States and start my own tech company to develop new immersive experiences for people to enjoy”, says Erik Lopez.

What was it like to enter this challenge?

“Being part of the competition was a unique experience. We wanted to integrate our common interest in dance into the performance and bring the stage to life with the help of 3D projection mapping for an extra immersive show”, Dahl and Lopez explain.

Please describe your performance!

Hanna Dahl. Photo: Private.

“It was inspired by the song ‘Energy’ by Sampa The Great. In the song, the singer talks about the importance of balancing both masculine and feminine aspects of our energy. Our performance portrays a female dancer – Hanna – using her body to express fluid and organic movements while she interacts and attempts to balance the robotic and geometrical movements of the drone, which symbolizes her inner masculine energy. In short, it was a very exciting and educational experience to participate in a new way of performing with drone movements.”

Did you learn something new?

“Yes, primarily we learned how to work with the drone and how careful we needed to be with our movements. One small misstep, and it would crash to the ground. The more we interacted with the drone, the more we got to know its patterns and dynamics”, say Hanna Dahl and Erik Lopez.

Text: Åse Karlén