Eric Drummond

On May 3, from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m., innovation will take over the RIT campus. Thanks to the Innovation Festival’s major sponsor, Paetec, left and right brain thinkers will gather for RIT’s first (and soon to be annual) Imagine RIT festival, to kick off the month of May.

“The idea is to take the lid off of RIT,” said Bob Finnerty, Chief Communications Officer of the Institute. Students, alumni, and the general public will gather to see all of what is going on here on campus. Projects from GCCIS to CIAS will transform the RIT campus to a playground of innovation. There will be robots to control, poster sessions to participate in, and performances to watch. With the Spring Fest happening the same day, there will also be a carnival to enjoy. “It’s just a great way to show off RIT in one day,” said Finnerty.

The Quarter Mile will be lined with exhibits guiding people to other regions on campus where organizations and colleges will open people’s eyes to what RIT has to offer. “It’s the full brain experience of RIT,” said Barry Culhane, Ombudsman and Chair of the Imagine RIT planning committee. “Our goal is that this campus will come alive in ways that no one has ever seen before.” Here are a few things to expect:

It’s All About the Environment, Baby

Composting At RIT

Engineers for a Sustainable World (ESW) has been working with Dining Services in its effort to become more eco-friendly. One of the main projects it is involved in is the RITz’s composting project. “They [are switching] from plastic single-use throw-away containers to compostable plastics, or at least biodegradable plastic and paper products that can be composted or recycled,” said James Cezo, ESW President.

Moreover, ESW has been trying to enlist Freshwise Farms in Penfield to collect the compost from the new containers for their farms and facilities. One reason behind the choice of company is that they are a part of the Rochester Foodlink. “The food link is an organization that tries to provide portable, locally grown food for lower-income families in urban areas in Rochester,” Cezo explained.

For the Innovation Festival, ESW will be setting up a presentation that will show the steps that take place during composting. “We are going to have a see-through box to show the various stages. [It will show] the progression from paper products, apple cores and egg shells, all the way to nutritious top soil.” A timescale and informational poster will also accompany it.

“Composting at RIT” will be located outside the SAU.

Residential Energy Savings

Three mechanical engineering majors, two industrial engineering majors, and a computer engineering major were grouped together for a required senior design project. Respectively, they were: Robert Underhill, Bill Jamieson, Aaron Resetarits, Kristopher Laera, Swathi Paruchur, and Jeremy Barczak. Six months later, they have nearly completed their project, called “The Residential Energy Saving Project.”

According to Resetarits, “One of the goals of the project was to conduct an energy audit of the residential side of campus...and come up with some capital improvements that could be implemented to save RIT money or save energy.” In order to achieve that, they conducted surveys and tested whether their theories of hallway timers and fluorescent bulb swaps were effective in lowering energy consumption. Inspired by a similar project at Oberlin College, they even built a website to determine how much energy an assigned power grid has been using. This website will be essential in the next phase of their project.

“The second part of our project was to do an energy saving competition between a bunch of the dorms. It’s our way of trying to get the students involved and get support for cutting down energy use on campus.” Resetarits said. “Students [will go] to the website and monitor their energy usage for a given time.” The rules of the competition state that whichever group can lower their base line consumption by the biggest percentage will win a pizza party.

The group will be presenting the results of their study at the Innovation Festival. They will also be displaying the progress of their competition which kicked off last April 21st and will continue until May 4th.

Machines, Computers, Robots, and AI. Oh My!

Andrew Tsai, Rachel Deutschman, J.J. Hill , Simone Perry, and Lee Rynearson (left to right) photographed on April 20 around the machine they are building for RIT’s Innovation and Creativity Festival.
Oscar Durand

Phi Sigma Pi’s Picture-taker

Inspired by Rube Goldberg’s intricately complex creations that carry out simple tasks, Phi Sigma Pi set out to make a machine of their own, one that would involve the most complicated way to take a picture. Their goal is to replace the effort your index finger makes to hit the shutter button. “Basically, the whole machine will act as a delay switch,” said Andrew Tsai, president of the fraternity and fourth year Mechanical Engineering major.

A ball bearing placed on a ramp will initiate the process as it journeys through loop-de-loops, twists, and turns. The machine will be encased within Plexiglass walls for audience viewing. At the end of the bearing’s trip, it will trigger a switch that will snap a picture. “We’re still building it now,” stated Tsai, “we want it to work consistently. That’s the tough part. Setting it up to work just once is easy, but repetitively is going to be difficult.”

With majors ranging from mechanical engineering to film and animation, the Honors fraternity saw this as a good way of unifying everyone for a central project. “We [mechanical engineers] have access to the machine shop, so we can do all the fabrication,” explained Tsai, “but we let the art majors make it look better.”

Check out their machine at the WOW Center.

The Amateur Radio Club’s Blimp

Dave Snyder and Dave Nilosek, both third year Imaging Science majors, will be displaying the very same blimp seen circling the airways during hockey games. The difference is that it will be flying itself for the first time in its history. “For Imagine RIT, we saw that we could take the existing blimp and do something cool with it,” Snyder said.

Snyder, Nilosek, and a few other Amateur Radio Club members upgraded the blimp by replacing a leaking bladder in order to keep the blimp afloat, rebuilding the gondola that hangs from the bottom of the blimp, and adding a camera for live “blimp’s-eye-view” video feeds. In addition, the team added a microcontroller based on line tracking and sonar / lidar systems which allowed the blimp to know its own location.

“The goal of the project would be to have the right electronics to be able to find its position and then follow a given path,” stated Snyder. According to Snyder and Nilosek, this is not just an opportunity to show off their team’s work. “We’re going to have an exhibit explaining how the blimp works,” explained Nilosek. “People can get a sense of how you can fly a machine with a microcontroller.”

Look for “a large floating object” at the back of the Clark Gymnasium.

Computerized Poetry

Josh Allmann, a fourth year Computer Science major at NTID, will be displaying his poem-generating program which he originally created for his girlfriend two years ago.

In his program, Allmann employed an algorithm using a Markov chaining technique similar to that used in Google searches, to take words and phrases from existing poems and recreate new ones. With a little bit of luck, a beautiful poem will be produced to either impress the ladies, or hand in as a last minute assignment for a creative writing class.

Although this way of looking at algorithms was very innovative and unique two years ago, it’s losing its luster for Allmann and he is currently looking at new approaches for this technique.

“Heroine,” the Robot

Michael Dumont, fourth year Computer Science major, and his friends at the Computer Science House (CSH) will be showcasing their soda-fetching robot, “Heroine.” This year, the robot was reprogrammed to retrieve drinks for the members of CSH from the vending machines that were installed on their floor and deliver the drinks to the desired dorm room.

“The navigation system is st ill in development, but even if we had it fully working, trying to adapt it to such a different environment [such as the Gordon Field House] with such a different system would be tricky,” said Dumont. “So at this point, it looks like we’re going to have the robot set up with remote controls.”

Along with “Heroine,” CSH is presenting five other projects at the fair including a multitouch table, which is essentially a computer on a tabletop with a touch screen similar to that of an iPhone.

Come check CSH’s “just over the horizon” projects at the WOW Center.

IM1

Have you ever wasted time at the supermarket only to forget the carton of milk you originally set out to buy? Fifth year Computer Science major, Valentinos Georgiades and his team have got you covered.

Together, they developed a Java-based software called Interactive Marketing One (IM1). A step toward personalized marketing, it will keep track of the products you use on a regular basis and will offer suggestions to the consumer based on their preferences and demographics. It will also let them know when they are running out of a certain product back at home. Prescriptions? No problem, this software will have it ready and waiting for you at the store.

“We’re hoping that it will help make the customer ’s life easier,” said Georgiades. “When we first heard about the Innovation Festival, we saw it as a great way to present it and also put a deadline to our project.”

You can test this new software with a simulated shopping experience at the Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences (Building 70).

3D and Virtual Reality

Saunder’s College of Business in 3D

“I see the future of the internet as being 3-D, not a flat 2-D,” said Matthew Anthony, a fourth year Management Information Systems major, as he spoke about his project for the fair. “In my mind, I am bringing the Saunders College into the future of the internet.”

Anthony’s project is a virtual representation of the Lowenthal building (also known as building 12) called “Virtual Saunders.” It will contain interactive classrooms, projection screens, and everything else you need in order to run a school in your “Second Life.” It is the beginning of what could be a future 3-D MyCourses.

Other than finding land in Second Life to create this building, the challenge of accurate construction arises. “What I’m doing is taking a lot of source photos of every angle of the building, inside, outside, everything,” stated Anthony. The photos will serve as a guideline to Anthony as he designs the virtual representation. Anthony stated that, “It gets into the computer science area when it comes to things like scripting a jpeg to be projected on the projection screens.”

Having worked with Second Life for four years and even participating in a co-op that developed it, Anthony saw it as a way for the Saunders College of Business to expand their involvement in the internet-based world. “The College of Business taught a course in Second Life last quarter, but there’s an issue of finding somewhere to do it,” Anthony said. “So I think doing this will help the college move forward technologically.”

Anthony’s “Virtual Saunders” will be located in front of the real Saunders Building for the fair.,

Bischof’s Black Hole

Professor Hans-Peter Bischof and his team have been working on simulating black hole collisions following Einstein’s theory of relativity. By entering information into a powerful supercomputer containing 85 interconnected nodes, each with its own dual processor, the team was able to collect the complex data produced by simulated black hole collisions. Using this data, they can then create a way of displaying it. “Our goal is to show the science which we do, but to show it in a way in which you can understand it,” stated Bischof. In other words, he wanted to make a visual representation so that those who are not physics geniuses can grasp the science.

Why should we care? Around the world, experiments are being done in order to observe and obtain evidence for gravity waves that are predicted to be produced when these black hole collisions occur. However, their existence has yet to be proven because scientists do not know what a gravity wave looks like. Bischof’s team is trying to simulate black hole collisions in a controlled setting so that the team will be able to collect the data and give scientists a blueprint of what they are actually looking for.

For the exhibit itself, there will be interactive videos and the team will be present to talk about what they do and answer any questions. “You have to wonder for whom this is for,” stated Bischof. “If an astrophysicist shows up from U of R, that’s a different level of communication than if a ten year old kid shows up, and I think that we are in the situation to say that we can make both happy.”

Bischof’s black hole will be displayed at the WOW Center.

Student Run Businesses

Glenn Kitchell works on Pixelated Magazine.
Oscar Durand

EB Dojo’s Pixelated Magazine

About five years ago in his freshman year, Glenn Kitchell, now a fifth year Computer Engineering major, banded together with six of his good friends to create something new and exciting. Calling themselves “EB Dojo,” they first created a webcomic titled “Edge of December” that followed three characters who dreamt of creating a dojo to teach people how to be strong and stand up for all the good things in the world.

“Edge of December” serves as the center for EB Dojo’s Pixelated Magazine. “[It was] created for aspiring artists and aspiring writers...It’s a grassroots kind of project where we’re going to print up different comics, short stories, essays, poetry and other things that people write. It will be there for anyone who wants to get into it,” Kitchell described.

However, Pixelated Magazine will not be just any old publication. “We’re going to print up what we call ‘way point exchange numbers...’ and people will be able to type in the number [into Google maps], put in their city and state, and hand it to one of their friends [to do the same]. [That way] you can track the magazine as it travels across the country,” said Kitchell. In addition, there will be a section where readers can input their own dialogue into a scene from the comic. “We totally just cut out little blurbs and think, ‘Okay, how can we make this scene completely goofy?’” Kitchell said.

EB Dojo will be located at the Clark Gym and will be selling hardcover and paperback copies of their magazine.

Performances

RIT Musicians

The RIT music program has changed immensely over the years and the Innovation Festival is the best place to show off how far it has come. “The program will be very well represented with lots of different styles and lots of different things” said Carl Atkins, Director of the RIT Music Program. Most of the groups and ensembles will be performing at different times in different locations. The Jazz Ensemble, directed by Jonathan Kruger, will be performing on an outdoor stage in the Infinity Quad. The RIT Singers will be performing at the Allen Chapel under the supervision of Ed Schell. The f lute choir will be playing in the College of Liberal Arts faculty commons. Finally, the RIT Orchestra, conducted by Michael Ruhling, and Atkin’s very own World Music ensemble will also be performing.

“In most cases, because of the volume of activities going on, [there will be only] one performance for each group to play.” Atkins explained. Most performances will only last about 30 minutes; however, the World Music ensemble, who had already scheduled a regular concert for May 3rd, will be having a two-hour long show at the Ingle Auditorium.

Three members of the RIT Pep Band (left to right) Steven McDermott, Elizabeth Phillips, and Spencer Herendeen. The RIT Pep Band will be performing at the Innovation and Creativity Festival on Saturday, May 3.
Emma Tannanbaum

In addition, the RIT Orchestra, whose performance will also be extended to an hour, will be using their performance as a preview for their spring concert occurring the very next day. They will be doing a demonstration of a contemporary piece based around mathematical principles. “It fits well with RIT,” Atkins joked. “Michael Ruhling will play some excerpts [and explain] how it was put together.”

BrainWreck Improv

“BrainWreck is a comedic improv-performance group that creates its acts entirely from audience suggestions,” described Jason Eberle, a second year New Media Interactive Development major and president of the organization.

The club is also one of a handful of organizations given recognition after a change of regulations in Student Government last winter quarter. For those of you who have ever been to an improv show, you understand how difficult it is to predict what to expect. “The shows are packed with fast comedy action and material is made up on the spot, so no two shows are ever the same,” Eberle explained. However, there will some structure for their Innovation Festival performance. “We will be presenting a brief history of the club, [and] then holding a Q&A session about our group. We will end the show with a few of our favorite improv games,” Eberle continued.

BrainWreck will be performing in the GCCIS Auditorium from 11 a.m. to noon. They will have another performance titled “BrainWreck Improv: Swimsuit Edition” on Saturday, May 10, from 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. All shows are free.

Other Exhibits and Demonstrations

Fluids Are Fun

James Cezo, a fifth year Mechanical Engineering major, attempts to reinvent the scientific norm with his project, “Fluids are Fun.”

“It’s an interactive demonstration of the different cool and unique properties of fluids,” Cezo described. The exhibit will contain two projects: a poor man’s attempt at pyrotechnics (also known as a Ruben’s tube) and a giant vat of faux quicksand for participants to run across or sink in. Cezo, who had come across the ideas while doing demos for elementary schools with his professor, believed, “[These were] the two that I thought would be really cool to recreate.”

For those who have never encountered a Ruben’s tube, it is best described as a “large tube filled with propane [that has] a bunch of holes drilled at the top.” The steady flow of propane comes in from one end of the tube and creates a constant standing flame. The other end will be hooked up to a speaker. “You can create waves in the flame, so it’s a really good visual representation of sound,” Cezo said.

Unfortunately, Public Safety was not too keen on the idea of an open flame in an enclosed space. “I had to talk to Risk Management and have them okay it...You can’t see a propane flame outside during a sunny day. It needs to be inside. I’ve only ever done it inside,” Cezo argued. Eventually, the project was approved. Now, there’s only one real problem left: “I need to find a place that sells 50 pound bags of cornstarch.”

“Fluids are Fun” will be in the Kate Gleason College of Engineering, 9-2370.

The Library

The Wallace Library will be a great source of entertainment, learning, and fun for all ages. Chris Lerch, Manager of Technological Services of RIT Libraries, stated “The Imagine RIT Committee used our annual Open House as an example of the types of things they wanted to do, so we knew we should have a strong involvement.” On display throughout the library will be exhibits ranging from demonstrations of Coptic binding to the creation edible books for the kiddies. “We wanted to pick things that would hold people’s attention,” said Lerch, “ not keep them for extended periods of time, since there will be so much to see and do.”

Along with the interactive activities, there will be a display titled “Libraries of the Future.” The exhibit will not only present how experts believe libraries will evolve, but also ask the public for their own input via a wiki page.

The New and Improved NTID

“For years, ASL interpreting education was analog bound. Now, everyone will be using digital and computer technology in the Academy,” stated Richard Smith, Academic Support Coordinator for American Sign Language and Interpreting Education. These advancements incorporate a file transferring system, marking the first of its kind in Interpreter Training Programs.

Also being added are two robotic cameras which will record mock teaching scenarios and presentations for possible student practice and future exams. Students can now access course material anytime and anywhere they want. “This is a huge step for us into the digital age,” said Smith. “It matches with our student population who are used to working in a digital world.”

Smith will be around for the day of the fair to show people around the facilities and demonstrate the new advancements in the ASL and Interpreting labs.