IMA Students Impress with Creative Tech

With courses like Interaction Lab, Communications Lab, Creating Immersive Worlds, Developing Web, Expressing Data, Introduction to Robotics, Solar Solutions and Shanghai Street Food & Urban Farming, it’s no surprise that about 100 Interactive Media Arts (IMA) students turned out 70 intricate, entertaining and impressive projects for the end of semester show.

“We really ask our students to focus on what they are curious about/interested in, and to reflect on what they want to investigate. We then work with them to reach those goals,” said Matt Belanger, Assistant Professor of Interactive Media Arts and Associate Director of IMA.

The show on December 11 had everything from a fun Flappy Bird-type game with a Shanghai twist by creators Linna Ha and Sara Bruszt, to a solar powered scooter by the Solar Solutions class; projects possessed a creative ingenuity that aimed to improve quality of life.

Take "Fitness+" by Cindy Hu and Yimin Wang, for example, born from combining Cindy’s music player project with Yimin’s weather report project. Using modified code, they developed a multifunctional fitness assistant that wakes up with you, ready with daily weather stats and a personalized exercise plan. With a wearable sensor, it can time your seven minute morning jog while dually functioning as a music player.

Designed as a bracelet, Angy Aguilar’s "Bike Alarm" notifies its wearer when their bike is on the brink of theft. A device senses movement in the bike and sends the bracelet wireless information. Aguilar explains that because bikes are “also a part of a rider’s personality...the design had to be aerodynamic and match the style of the rider and of the bike.”

Guests at the event tested out morse code, mixed electronic beats, created mess-free works of art, tried a yoga mat that tracks plank position progress and lost themselves in the fantastical ocean-space biome of virtual reality.

“Our students really do extraordinary work, and there is so much diversity of work. It reflects our core philosophy of supporting student driven research,” said Marianne Petit, Associate Arts Professor and Director of IMA.

The exhibition of experimental works brought out the inner programmer, designer, gamer and artist in innovative students whose prototypes were proof of a creatively impacted and supportive community.

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