
Lancaster University 2025
Device Prototyping Summer School
The second annual Device Prototyping Summer School is taking place at Lancaster University between the 15th and 18th of July 2025. Led by Professor Steve Hodges and Dr Lorraine Underwood, the event is organised by the pro² network+ and the Lancaster University Devices Lab. Learn more on our event page.
Delegates were selected following the submission of a short paper describing a digital device which they are seeking to refine and scale for market production. Ranging from assistive technology to educational devices to the arts, the prototypes span a wide range of fields and industries.
Summer School Presenters

Steve Hodges
Professor at Lancaster University
Is an internationally recognised leader in interactive and embedded device creation. He has built and deployed prototypes at all scales, and many of these have transitioned to volume production resulting in millions of devices in market globally.

Lorraine Underwood
Senior Teaching Associate at Lancaster University
Lorraine Underwood is an internationally published researcher in computer science education, with a particular focus on physical computing. She has built and developed prototypes for teachers and students to use in classrooms around the UK. Lorraine also creates and films personal electronic projects for element14 part of Avnet, the world’s 2nd largest electronic distributor.

Joe Finney
Professor at Lancaster University
Is a global figure in empowering non-experts to innovate with technology, in particular helping them to learn about and build lightweight embedded systems. His work has also led to millions of embedded devices that are in daily use around the world.

Mandy Xiang
Production specialist
Mandy Xiang is seasoned project manager in the electronics industry who lives and works in Shenzhen in the Guandong region of China, arguably the world’s electronics production capital. She has experience working for the world’s largest contract electronics manufacturer, Foxconn, and also for much smaller electronics innovators like Seeed Studio where she directed their Fusion low volume production service. While at Seeed, Mandy also earned an MBA from Harbin Institute of Technology.
Mandy is currently a project manager at Bitcraze AB, a drone manufacturing company headquartered in Sweden. She works with Bitcraze’s electronics manufacturing partners and manages their supply chain to ensure the efficient delivery of high-quality products to Bitcraze customers.

Jason Alexander
Professor at Bath University
Jason is a Professor in Human-Computer Interaction in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Bath. His primary research area is Human-Computer Interaction, with a particular interest in developing novel interactive systems that straddle the physical-digital interface.

Simon Monk
Author and Product Designer at Monk Makes
Known for being the author of books on electronics and programming, including the best-selling ‘Programming Arduino’ and ‘The Raspberry Pi Cookbook’. He’s sold over 800,000 books worldwide and his books have been translated into 10 languages. These days he spends most of his time designing products for MonkMakes and improving their manufacturing process at their workshop in Lancashire, UK.

Pete Lomas
Managing / Engineering Director at Norcott Technologies
Leading UK provider of electronic design & CEM services. His experience spans both industry and academia having previously been a lecturer at the University of Manchester. Pete is one of co-founders of the Raspberry Pi Foundation which produced the Rasberry Pi computer, over 60 million units of which have now been sold worldwide.

Rory Clark
Research Associate at the University of Bristol
Rory’s main topic of research is User-Centred Design and Human Computer Interaction “in-the-wild”. His work has a heavy interdisciplinary focus, involving collaboration with a variety of stakeholders to solve problems in unconventional ways.

Kim Sauvé
Computer Science Lecturer at UWE Bristol
Kim is a researcher in Human–Data Interaction (HDI) and data physicalization. Her work combines physical computing, interaction design, and visualization to create interactive systems that make data more engaging and accessible.

Aron Eggens
PhD Student at Lancaster University
Researching methods to make hardware design and production easier.

John Vidler
Senior Research Associate at Lancaster University
John has research interests in data science and was awarded a prize for teaching by Lancaster University.

Kobi Hartley
Research Associate at Lancaster University
Kobi’s research interests relate to the use of tools like the Jacdac and BBC micro:bit which promote prototyping as well as STEM educaiton.

James Hahn
PhD student at Lancaster University
Researching methods to make hardware production easier.

Oliver Child
PhD Student at Bristol University
Oliver is interested in how people can harness the precision of digital fabrication machines to locally make high-fidelity and functional devices. His research focuses on 3D printing of interactive objects with embedded circuitry.

Jack Burnett
PhD Student at Bristol University
Jack’s research centres on generating accessible hardware by parameterising both user needs and hardware design. The aim is to develop an open-source toolkit that empowers disabled users to rapidly prototype and create their own hardware, shifting the focus from designing for disabled users to designing by disabled users.