2014 Emerging Creatives Student Conference
Overview
The inaugural a2ru Emerging Creatives Student Conference, hosted by Stanford University, served students of all disciplines with an interest in crossing creative boundaries and actualizing collaborative projects. As a convocation of students from a2ru partner universities across the country, the conference focused on providing the inspiration and tools needed to help this group of emerging creatives develop, execute, and sustain new interdisciplinary collaborative endeavors. The conference was extraordinarily successful. As a result, interest in future yearly student conferences hosted at a2ru partner universities is currently under consideration.
View the post-conference report by a2ru Associate Director Tony Kolenic.
Session Media
d.school Design Thinking Bootcamp
Watch a video clip from the d.school bootcamp with Bill Burnett, Executive Director of the Design Program at Stanford University.
A2RU_dSchool_The Machine from Harold on Vimeo.
A Conversation on Interdisciplinary Collaboration with Ivica Ico Bukvic, Elaine Martyn, Bill Sherman and Srinija Srinivasan
Click below to read a transcript of this panel conversation.
Student Projects
Aspire America Airlines
Team:
Natasha Cirisano, University of Southern California
Tiffany Dharma, Stanford University
Kiri Eberhart, Iowa State University
Thomas Eslinger, University of Iowa
Josh Gigantino, Arizona State University
Minjong Lee, Carnegie Mellon University
Matthew McMahan, Tufts University
Allen Osgood, Washington University in St Louis
Sheng-Ying Pao, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cooper Sanghyun Yoo, Arizona State University
Eric Walisko, James Madison University
Project Description:
Inspired by their flight out to Palo Alto, this team decided to tackle the airline industry and wanted to create a better flying experience. Their airline, called Aspire America, helps business travelers arrive at their destinations refreshed and inspired. The customized interior of each plane provides spacious first-class style seating for everyone and a large work area in the tail of the plane with desks, whiteboards and digital tools for teams to collaborate before arriving at their destination. Movable flat-panel displays provide collaborative digital tools, inflight exterior video and entertainment in a flexible manner. Satellite broadband combined with onboard data services keeps data secure while helping employees to perform at their best. The workspaces are equipped with full range studio monitors for audio performance and jam sessions.This enables teams of employees to continue working, rest or otherwise find inspiration inside their reimagined take on classic jet-age travel.
Creatist: Connecting Creatives Across Campuses
Team:
Trevor Myrick, University of Utah
Dani Powers, University of Utah
Sadah Proctor, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Sarah Rozman, James Madison University
Bruno Tambusco, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Sara Tanner, University of Florida
Project Description:
In the traditional university system, departments and majors often limit the opportunity for students to network, share ideas and collaborate. Specifically related to the arts, many students’ projects or ideas need collaborating partners with varying skill-sets to assist in realizing these projects. This team’s project is called “Creatist,” a digital forum that provides space for collaboration, creativity, community and workflow. This responsive, mobile-ready website would provide a structured and problem-based networking forum for students who are creatively inclined. Students could create a profile that would include their creative portfolio, interests and skills, lists of projects completed, and other customizable widgets. Users could then search for other users with certain desired skills.
Human Powered Park Project (HPPP)
Team:
Kaitlyn Irvine, University of Florida
Christine Lujan, Washington University in St Louis
Lu Ou, Pennsylvania State University
Charles Wu, Washington University in St Louis
Project Description:
This team recognized that there is currently an over-usage of energy in the United States as well as a lack of education in respect to quantifying energy consumption on a daily basis, so they aim to educate and raise awareness on the need to reduce household energy consumption by building a human powered exercise installation in various communities. The HPPP will be built in a local community park located in San Francisco, California, featuring three exercise bikes that surround an LED display board. As the user pedals the stationary bicycle, the rotational energy will be converted into electrical energy to power the LED display. The energy produced from the three bicycles will be used to project the three primary colors on the LED display. The amount of energy generated from one bicycle will be directly proportional to the intensity of that specific color. Thus when the three bicycles are used at the same time, the full range of the color spectrum can be covered.The energy produced by all the bicycles will be recorded and displayed on one corner of the LED display. They plan to display energy facts that are directly relatable to the user’s immediate exercise to reflect what the amount of energy generated can be translated into their household usage. In the long run, they hope to see communities compete for the most amount of energy generated to promote our vision of advocating fitness as well as understanding energy consumption at a higher level.
Reimagining the Juvenile Detention System
Team:
Jace Christensen, Iowa State University
Will Erwin, University of Southern California
Rachel Kirkpatrick, Iowa State University
Margaret Keener, Johns Hopkins University
Elizabeth Korb, Washington University in St Louis
David Lydon, Pennsylvania State University
Chloe Mapes, James Madison University
Meisha N. Rosenberg, Iowa State UniversityFollow
Michael L. Spory, Iowa State UniversityFollow
Ylan Vo, Washington University in St Louis
Joey Weed, University of Alabama
Project Description:
This group proposed to improve the juvenile detention system through policy as well as through change in the design of detention centers. Team members agreed to redesign the system in order to avoid dehumanizing adolescents and to introduce them to a new kind of community environment. The design of the prison will be based on a set of concentric circles. The inner circle will be the most restrictive in terms of freedoms and privileges. As the adolescent gains skills and trust, they move from the inner circle to the outer circles. The outer circles allow for more freedom and trust, physically demonstrated through the opening of the prison space into individual houses. With this increased trust and freedom, adolescents will also take on more responsibilities and become effective members of the prison community–working in the community garden for example.
The Unconference Research Initiative
Team:
Erik DeLuca, University of Virginia
Dylan Halpern, Virginia Commonwealth University
Gurnoor Kaur, Arizona State University
Christina Jones, University of Utah
Rachel Vassar, University of Virginia
Nicole Williams, Arizona State University
Project Description:
This group responded to the challenge in part with a conceptual piece of creative writing–a “conference snapshot” written by the Unconference Research Initiative (URI). The initiative is a transdisciplinary group of scholars who build conference infrastructure to support conference content. Robots? Check. Karaoke? Check.