Warm up this February with Immersive Tech Week, presented by the Immersive Technology Collective at WashU.
Join us February 25–28 for software tutorials, a showcase of student and faculty work, and a keynote from WashU’s own Jonathan Hanahan, Associate Professor and Chair, MDes for HCI and Emerging Technology in the Sam Fox School.
WashU Immersive Tech Showcase
Tuesday, Feb. 25
10 a.m. – 2 p.m.
Holmes Lounge
Experience augmented reality and virtual reality projects created by Washington University faculty and students, presented by the Immersive Technology Collective.
Refreshments will be served.
Showcases will feature a mixture of faculty and student projects, including:
- Wenting Yu, “Designing UX/UI for VISIBLE: Resurrecting Henry ‘Box’ Brown’s Moving Panorama, ‘Mirror of Slavery’”
- Zix Chen, “Virtual Tameshigiri”
- Yuechen Zhang, “The Beanstalk - a VR Experience”
- Keysha Brutus, “Creating VR from Textual Sources: 19th-Century Descriptions of Paris”
- Harper Tooch, AVA
- Nev Turco, “Jue: Functional or Ornamental?”
- Jialing Sun, “Stele of Maitreya Buddha: Buddhism’s Integration into Han Chinese Society”
- Merry Schlarmann, “Dvarapala: Opening the Door into Tang Buddhist Cave Sculpture with 3D Modeling”
- Hope Hewett, “Working with Smithsonian Voyager: A Winged Dragon Walkthrough”
Unity VR Workshop
Wednesday, Feb. 26
Noon – 2 p.m.
Olin Library, Instruction Room 2 (Level A)
Taught by Rob Santos and presented by the Immersive Technology Collective cluster, this workshop will introduce participants to the basics of the Unity VR engine.
There will be an attendance limit of 26, so please RSVP today!
AVA Studio Open House
Wednesday, Feb. 26
1:30 – 4 p.m.
Olin Library, AVA Studio (Level A)
Audiovisual/Virtual Reality/Augmented Reality (AVA) Studio is a creative digital space on Olin Library Level A. It houses AR/VR headsets, a photography setup, and audio recording equipment. The purpose of AVA Studio is to provide an accessible space to interact with digital technology.
Get an up-close look at the studio as part of our Immersive Tech Week open house and begin envisioning your next project there.
Immersive Tech Week Keynote: Jonathan Hanahan
“Sensory and Ambient Interfaces”
Friday, Feb. 28
Noon – 2 p.m.
DUC 276
Keynote from Jonathan Hanahan, Associate Professor and Chair, MDes for HCI and Emerging Technology in the Sam Fox School at WashU.
Lunch will be served.
Abstract:
For most of its existence, communication design has prioritized visual feedback to users. Even today’s digital interfaces only use other senses, like touch and sound, to alert users to look at a device. As our physical and digital worlds further entwine, a new feedback methodology is required that embraces alternative senses as primary feedback methods, particularly in compromised experiences—where a screen is unavailable, dangerous, or distracting from a primarily complex task.
Jonathan Hanahan, Associate Professor of Design and Chair of MDes for HCI and Emerging Technology, is interested in evolving a pedagogy that builds on the foundation of craft associated with visual design yet translates it into alternative senses as a catalyst for a world where adding more screens is no longer a valid solution. Through the Sensory and Ambient Interfaces Lab (SAIL) at Wash U, founded in 2022, Hanahan is building a body of research into alternative feedback strategies that invert the visual-first priority of digital feedback and investigate how information is translated through ambient strategies that “complement a human’s environment, rather than impose themselves on it.”
Through this presentation, Hanahan will showcase the evolution of SAIL, including current research with WashU athletics, primarily the rowing team, to develop haptic interfaces for performance enhancement. These foundational pilot investigations aspire to further collaborative opportunities in other compromised experiences including medicine, military, safety, and more.