featurenews

B2 & The TANK share NEA award for collaborative artist residencies

Michael Kwolek — Wed, 15 Jan 2025 21:38:14 +0000

B2 & The TANK share NEA award for collaborative artist residencies Michael Kwolek Wed, 01/15/2025 - 14:38

Selected artists will develop sonic works at The TANK, a transformative audio lab housed inside a massive decommissioned water tank in Rangley, Colorado, then present the works at the B2's Black Box Studio, which is equipped with an ambisonic sound array.⁠

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Textbooks come alive with new, interactive AI tool

Anonymous — Fri, 01 Nov 2024 19:18:55 +0000

Textbooks come alive with new, interactive AI tool Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 11/01/2024 - 13:18

ATLAS assistant professor, Ryo Suzuki, makes textbooks more interactive with AI-powered tools that turn diagrams into effective simulations for more personalized and immersive learning.

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Whaaat!? Festival is a treasure box of experimental games

Anonymous — Tue, 29 Oct 2024 15:33:05 +0000

Whaaat!? Festival is a treasure box of experimental games Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 10/29/2024 - 09:33

Michael Kwolek

Experimental games from the ATLAS community and beyond? Retro arcade classics? Industry luminaries, fans and friends? Unlimited breakfast cereal and nachos? It must be time for Whaaat!? Festival, Season 7.

ATLAS associate teaching professor Danny Rankin and assistant teaching professor Anthony Pinter are gearing up for this year’s gaming gathering, now in its seventh year. We discussed the inspiration behind the event and why everyone from noobs to S-tier gamers will find something to love.

What is Whaaat!? Festival all about?
“Whaaat!?” is the reaction to amazing interactions and experiences. It is the feeling you get when your expectations are shattered. The Whaaat!? Festival is a day devoted to that feeling—through experimental games, alternative controllers and playful interactions, we want attendees to wonder, “What could possibly be next?”

Who is the festival for?
Anyone interested in games, alternative controllers, and weird and playful interactions will have a great time at the Whaaat!? Festival. The festival is open to the public – we just ask that attendees do buy tickets on Eventbrite. We have a few different ticketing levels available, including a pay-what-you-want option for folks who might have limited financial means. Every ticket includes our all-you-can-eat cereal bar and nacho bar lunch.

What inspired you to start the festival?
The inspiration started with other great festivals that we've attended and shown work at. We love play-focused events like AMAZE and Indiecade, and we wanted to bring together the games and creators we love to an audience here in Colorado. Beyond that, we hope to stretch the imagination of our attendees by featuring work that expands the boundaries of what we call "games."

Is there a theme for this year’s event?
We've embraced a "golden-era 90s sitcom" vibe for this year's promotion style, and that will connect with some of the surprises at the festival—hidden laugh tracks, haunted televisions, maybe even a sitcom living room set? That said, this year's arcade game selections are all over the place—the theme every year is just, "Games that make you say Whaaat!?"

Speaking of keynotes, any cool special guests scheduled to present?
Yes! We have two awesome guest keynotes this year – Josh Zhong and Naomi Clark!

Josh is a Resident Researcher at ITP, an interdisciplinary program housed within the Tisch School of the Arts at NYU. (Coincidentally, several of our faculty past and present are ITP alums!) Josh will also be running his wild game, First Person Josh, and his talk is scheduled for our morning keynote slot around 10:30 AM.

Naomi is an Associate Arts Professor and the Chair of the NYU Game Center. Naomi has worked on over 35 titles in her career, and has several published books, including the seminal A Game Design Vocabulary. Naomi’s talk is scheduled for our afternoon keynote slot around 1:00 PM.

Why should people attend?

Because what else are you going to do on Saturday in ��«��Ƶ when it's forecasted to be 50 degrees and rainy? [Editor’s note: at the time of this interview, the weather was forecasted to be sunny and in the 60s?]

But, actually, it is a chance to play awesome games (including some that haven’t been released yet), connect with local game makers and developers, and see what is going on in the local game community here in ��«��Ƶ. It is also a great opportunity to see the ATLAS Institute, which sponsors the festival (and whose faculty serve on the event’s organizing committee.)

We showcase ATLAS student games and projects as part of the festival, so it is also a time for students to see the sort of work they could do if they decided to join us as majors in the Creative Design and Technology program at CU ��«��Ƶ.

Final thoughts?
We hope you’ll consider joining us for season seven of the Whaaat!? Festival… it promises to be the best one yet!

Whaaat!? Festival event details

Event details and schedule: Whaaat!? Festival website

Tickets: Eventbrite

When: Saturday, November 2, 2024 from 10 AM - 4 PM

Where: Roser ATLAS Center, 1125 18th St., ��«��Ƶ, CO

Our Q&A with festival organizers explores the inspiration behind the event as they power up to welcome gamers to ATLAS for a day devoted to all things games.

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Students collaborate on NSF NCAR exhibit that highlights surprising climate science

Anonymous — Mon, 07 Oct 2024 21:45:27 +0000

Students collaborate on NSF NCAR exhibit that highlights surprising climate science Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 10/07/2024 - 15:45

Michael Kwolek

It’s one thing to study how the relief and albedo of the ice sheets affected weather patterns during the Last Glacial Maximum 20,000 years ago. And it’s a whole other thing to develop an interactive, engaging museum exhibit on the subject for general audiences. But that’s just what teams from the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NSF NCAR), NOAA and ATLAS managed to do.

Millennia ago, ice sheets formed over huge swaths of North America that were nearly as tall as some of our continent’s highest mountains. They were so massive that they essentially created their own weather.

Former CIRES postdoc Dillon Amaya (now at NOAA’s Physical Sciences Laboratory) studied these weather phenomena along with Kris Karnauskas, CIRES fellow and associate professor in the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, with NSF funding.

Researchers long hypothesized that the ice’s massive scale during the Last Glacial Maximum was enough to block the jet stream and change weather patterns sweeping in from the Pacific Ocean. For example, back then the area around what is today Southern California was much wetter while the Pacific Northwest was relatively drier. Today that is reversed.

Through advanced computer simulations, the CIRES team discovered that albedo creates a cooling effect that alters atmospheric circulation in ways that cannot be explained solely by the sheer size of ice sheets. Albedo is a measure of the amount of light reflected off of a surface—and ice sheets reflect a lot of sunlight, significantly impacting wind patterns. The research showed the Pacific Ocean was the driver behind the changes.

Translating Complex Research
In spring 2022, ATLAS offered a class called Design a Science Exhibit for ATLAS and Computer Science students. It centered on designing approachable museum exhibits that translate hard science for everyday people. Led by ATLAS director Mark Gross and adjunct faculty member Wayne Seltzer in collaboration with Eddie Goldstein from the Denver Nature and Science Museum, student teams partnered with researchers and museum specialists to prototype exhibitions that incorporated coding, materials selection, fabrication and storytelling.

Gross notes, “We should be teaching our engineers to communicate with broad audiences, particularly around climate change. We might do good science and engineering, but we’re not always good at communicating it to the public.”

A team of CU ��«��Ƶ students formed a group to translate the CIRES ice sheet research into an exhibit prototype, including, ATLAS PhD student, David Hunter; Natasha Smith (MS Environment, Environmental Policy); and ATLAS undergraduate students Caileigh Hudson, Logan Turner and Julia Tung.

Seltzer explains, “The research paper that inspired this exhibit is not all that accessible to readers who are not climate scientists. The students focused on what they decided was essential knowledge—the factors that result in an ice age and how computer models can help us predict climate change.”

Experimenting with Form
The team originally conceived of a sandbox as the project medium. As you moved the sand around to build different topographies, visual projections overlaid from above would show how weather patterns change. The idea made sense in theory, but practical stipulations (sand can be challenging to manage in a museum space) pushed the team in a different direction.

Hunter details this evolution, “We made little blocks that represent [topographic features], and then you could put the blocks on top of each other so you could sculpt [a landscape.] As a team, we went about designing and building the whole rig and had a prototype by the end of the semester, and we got to show it alongside everyone else's work at NCAR.”

NSF NCAR science educators were so impressed with the prototype that they invited the team to work on a permanent installation.

Making it Real

The biggest challenge then became orchestrating all the different people and components involved in developing a functional exhibit that could live for the long-term with as little ongoing maintenance as possible. Hunter notes, “There’s the digital prototype building, but then there’s the physical make-this-real part as well as the education part and ensuring visitors would get the right message.”

After two years of iterative collaboration with scientists, curators, coders, fabricators and educators, the exhibit is now officially on permanent display at the Mesa Lab Visitor’s Center. Thousands of guests each year will be able to explore how massive ice sheets can alter the climate in surprising ways.

Amaya related, “This was probably one of the most gratifying experiences of my scientific career. It's not often that a piece of research like this leads to such tangible educational outcomes, so I'm super proud of our team for seeing it through! It's my hope that this exhibit can help illustrate some of these exotic climate interactions so that visitors can leave with a better physical intuition for how and why things were so wildly different.”

If you go:

NSF NCAR Mesa Lab Visitor’s Center
1850 Table Mesa Drive
��«��Ƶ, CO

Free Admission

Hours:
Monday - Friday: 8:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. MT
Saturday, Sunday & Holidays: 9:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. MT

An interdisciplinary team transforms complex research into an interactive museum exhibit on how ice sheets influenced weather millennia ago.

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Brewing Sustainability: Michael Rivera powers up 3D printing with coffee grounds

Anonymous — Thu, 26 Sep 2024 15:40:15 +0000

Brewing Sustainability: Michael Rivera powers up 3D printing with coffee grounds Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 09/26/2024 - 09:40

Carnegie Mellon University alumni profile details how our Utility Research Lab director employs sustainable materials in place of plastics in 3D printing and textile development.

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Bruns receives Provost's Faculty Achievement Award

Anonymous — Fri, 20 Sep 2024 15:54:42 +0000

Bruns receives Provost's Faculty Achievement Award Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 09/20/2024 - 09:54

ATLAS assistant professor, Carson Bruns, was among a group of five CU ��«��Ƶ pre-tenure faculty recognized for excellence in teaching, scholarship, leadership and service. He was selected for his research on smart tattoos.

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Denver artist Joel Swanson questions everything

Anonymous — Mon, 16 Sep 2024 17:03:19 +0000

Denver artist Joel Swanson questions everything Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 09/16/2024 - 11:03

ATLAS associate professor's new gallery show, "Orderings," challenges basic assumptions of everyday order through sculpture, mixed media, video and more.

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Touching the Sun with Solar Stones

Anonymous — Tue, 27 Aug 2024 16:52:41 +0000

Touching the Sun with Solar Stones Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 08/27/2024 - 10:52

ATLAS undergraduate students partnered with NASA's PUNCH mission and the Colorado School for the Deaf and Blind to make tactile representations of ancient petroglyphs.

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Devendorf bridges engineering and craft communities with new initiative

Anonymous — Tue, 13 Aug 2024 15:54:01 +0000

Devendorf bridges engineering and craft communities with new initiative Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 08/13/2024 - 09:54

Michael Kwolek

Weaving and engineering might seem unrelated on the surface, but they in fact have a great deal in common. Laura Devendorf, assistant professor at the ATLAS Institute and Information Science, is determined to build bridges among practitioners across these disciplines to unlock the potential for new lines of scientific and creative innovation.

To support this work, Devendorf, who directs the Unstable Design Lab, was recently awarded a U.S. National Science Foundation grant of $297,630 for phase one of a larger project entitled, “Cultivating an Ecosystem for Interdisciplinary Smart Textiles Research.”

The research builds on software Devendorf and her team developed called, AdaCAD, an open-source tool they describe as an “experimental workspace that applies parametric design to the domain of weave drafting. It supports algorithmic and playful approaches to developing woven structures and cloth, for shaft and jacquard looms.”

The aim of this new research, as Devendorf describes it, is to, “take this software that we built for doing complex weave drafting and transition it to a project where it is sustained and grown by a larger community of weavers and [those] who we call ‘textile-adjacent engineers’.” That way, AdaCAD can develop and adapt to the needs of a wider user-base over time as all good open source software does.

This work exemplifies the radically interdisciplinary work that the ATLAS Institute champions. By bringing together disparate experts and communities—in this case, artists, artisans, engineers and researchers—we create new approaches to discovery.

From adjacent to integrated
Textiles are pervasive, yet often misunderstood in engineering spaces. The surprising mathematical complexity, materials knowledge and innovation that have arisen over centuries of textile practice are often overlooked. At the same time, weavers who come from a tradition of craftsmanship, art and design may be unfamiliar with meaningful advances in the engineering space.

By bringing together these two worlds, Devendorf hopes to open up opportunities for breakthroughs in technology and craft, whether that is in advancing electronic-textile science or pushing the boundaries of artistic expression.

For example, an engineering team may seek ways to monitor health without the use of adhesives often required for electrodes, while weavers already have options for materials and techniques that could replace such adhesives. Yet both groups are often unaware of each other’s needs and skills. But overcoming this knowledge gap, Devendorf believes engineers and weavers could together achieve greater impact.

There are signs this is beginning to take place, and she aims to speed the process. Research labs at CalTech and MIT as well as industrial design studios around the globe have acquired digital looms to experiment with weaving advanced materials and experimental forms.

But first: listening
Phase I of this project will focus on fact-finding and planning. The team will lead community-engagement activities and trainings and gather points-of-view from craftspeople, designers, engineers and others across many communities.

Devendorf and her team have begun interviewing people from a range of overlapping disciplines. They include a weaver with a fine arts background who now works on woven implantables for a medical devices company and a textiles expert researching stronger, lighter woven materials for the aviation industry. Still others in the cohort are studying zero-waste, “whole garment” clothing manufacturing and human-computer interaction surfaces on the body. The range of applications for textiles is growing at an impressive pace.

Devendorf explains this recent uptick in interest: “Ten years ago, it was all about the maker movement and digital fabrication, and it took a while before people realized that textile machines are also fabrication machines that can do things that we're still trying to get 3D printers to do. Textiles are inherently multi-material. They are flexible, they can be made stiff, they can be soft. It's a totally different mindset to control a textile machine [compared] to a printer that is making stacks. There’s a big learning gap there, but you see a lot of fabrication people jumping in.”

The TC2 Loom by Digital Weaving Norway has also expanded access to advanced weaving techniques as a first-of-its-kind prototype-scale digital jacquard loom that is programmable with a bitmap image. Now you no longer need a factory-scale setup to experiment with textiles fabrication.

What’s next
For Phase II, the team will focus on cultivating the ecosystem through on-the-ground work with communities and creating opportunities for practitioners to share what they are making. Devendorf also aims to expand opportunities for craftspeople in scientific research and product design spaces.

She explains, “we have huge problems to tackle as a society. I believe that engineering can address some of those, but I don't think we can do it if we don't have access to every possible technique… We're overlooking a huge set of practices and people in communities that have knowledge we need to solve some of these bigger challenges. My hunch is that craftspeople understand materials, process and machinery where so much of engineering is happening at a simulation level [while] trying to engineer materials that behave like the simulations.”

By fostering interconnectivity between engineering and weaving communities, Devendorf and her team in the Unstable Design Lab will position textiles as a leading source for innovative solutions to global challenges.

The Unstable Design Lab director has embarked on the first phase of a years-long project to bring together engineering and craft communities to advance textile research across a range of scientific disciplines.

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ATLAS PhD student deploys papercraft to make engineering tangible and fun

Anonymous — Tue, 30 Jul 2024 19:50:41 +0000

ATLAS PhD student deploys papercraft to make engineering tangible and fun Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 07/30/2024 - 13:50

ATLAS PhD student Ruhan Yang blends papercraft and circuit design to make engineering more tangible, accessible and fun for tinkerers of all ages.

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