"The approach was straightforward; I based it on the actual processes in an engine. I created ignition sounds in the rollers that repeated according to engine speed. Additional noise and harmonic sounds were then added to simulate air movement and mechanical sounds in the engine. The sum of these components was subsequently filtered through a resonator, which again has a direct parallel in a real automobile," Ing. Jakub Dvořák described his work on the winning project. "A significant sound in a car is also the surrounding wind and road noise; this was synthesized as noise in which higher frequencies become more pronounced with increasing speed, and gusts of wind were also added. Sounds of driving over obstacles were included as well; these reacted to peaks in vertical acceleration (rattling). Acceleration was one of the available parameters,” Dvořák explained.
The winner noted that the most challenging part was tuning the engine sound and adding subtle noises and rustles so as to achieve the best possible overall impression. "The sound consists of a large number of individual sound components, and it was necessary to fine-tune their volume and character so that none of them stood out or became distracting,” the award-winning student said.
Second place went to Bc. Štěpán Marousek, a student of the master’s program Open Informatics. Third place was awarded to Bc. Tomáš Kratochvíl, who studies Electronics and Communications. The same program is also studied by Bc. Jan Kříž, who received an honorable mention from the jury for his project in this year’s competition.
Students could create their projects, for example, in MATLAB or other types of software environments. This year’s jury included Prof. Roman Čmejla from the Department of Circuit Theory at FEE, Assoc. Prof. Petr Bouchner from the Faculty of Transportation Sciences, CTU, Dr. Tomáš Lustyk from Digiteq Automotive, Dr. Lubor Zháňal from the software company Humusoft, and Ing. Antonín Gazda, a student of UMPRUM.
The competition symbolically concludes the semester-long course Audio Signal Synthesis taught by Professor Čmejla. However, the competition itself is also open to students from other universities as well as to high school students.
In previous years, students were tasked with synthesizing, for example, the composition Typewriter by the American composer Leroy Anderson, the song Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen, Smetana’s Vltava, Yellow Submarine by the Beatles, or the theme music of the British crime series Midsomer Murders.
The partners of the competition are the Faculty of Transportation Sciences of CTU, the Czech Acoustical Society, and the companies Humusoft and Digiteq Automotive.
