GCS Release Showcase + Opera: The Pastiche Project
Game Creation Society: Release Showcase
Come one, come all this Friday 12/11 at 6:00 PM ET to check out the video games that Game Creation Society members have been working on all of the Fall 2020 semester! This event is open to everyone. Join the GCS Discord to play along and voice your feedback. If you just wanna view the awesomeness, you can join the Twitch Stream. Hope to see you there! Check out our Facebook event here: https://www.facebook.com/events/177331160619610
Opera: The Pastiche Project
Students in Johannes DeYoung's Real-Time Animation course collaborated with BFA Vocal Performance majors for the upcoming Pastiche Project. The Animation students provided digital, animated backgrounds for the compositions that the vocalists created. The entire production was shot remotely in dorm rooms, homes, and rehearsal spaces. The pastiches, A Day in the Life at Cantata Cafe and Home Before Dark, are scheduled to premiere on December 12th on the School of Music's YouTube channel.
IDeATe Students Wanted for Smart Maker Spaces Study
As part of an NSF-funded project titled Smart Maker Spaces, we are conducting a deign research study to better understand student documentation practices especially in the context of remote-learning environments. As part of this work, we would like to study your current understanding and practice of documentation through a series of probes. These probes are methods and activities that will allow you to deeply observe and reflect on your everyday life and experiences that relate to documentation. The goal is to improve our understanding of students’ habits, challenges, and experiences surrounding this practice in the context of maker and project-based learning.
For this study, we would like to engage students in completing five activities that span over five days. This study will take approximately an hour and a half in total. 15-20 minutes will be spent each day for the first four days, and then 30 minutes on the last day. This study will be conducted completely remote, at a location of your choosing and at a time that suits you. You can choose to begin on the week of December 7th or the 14th. The final day will involve a one-on-one debrief session conducted via Zoom but the remainder of the study can be completed independently and individually.
To take part in the study, you must be at least 18 years of age and are currently enrolled in an IDeATe course or an IDeATe minor. If you are interested in participating, complete the screening survey at
http://cmu.ca1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_aXnCIjLbC9t7Xr7
If you are selected for the study, you will be asked to fill out a consent form. Your participation is completely voluntary, and the compensation for this five-day probe study will be a $50 Amazon gift card at the completion of the study. Please reach out to Marti Louw if you have any questions or would like to talk further about the study.
New S21 Course: 17-397 Intro to Qualitative Research: Social Media Apps and Video Content Creation
What are users’ motivations to participate in video creation and sharing on social media such as TikTok? What are their practices, strategies, and routines in creating short-form videos as part of digital online culture? What do they know about socio-technical aspects in using short-video apps and creating short-form video content? These are just some questions to study and understand how humans as users interact with social technology and how the use of social media apps is connected to and integrated into our everyday life. This course will teach qualitative approaches to address these and related questions in the context of media, interaction, and technology research and take cultural, social, and political perspectives on social media participation within digital (youth) culture. It will specifically focus on recently popular short-video apps, foremost TikTok, that have revealed themselves to be highly accessible and increasingly ubiquitous in regards to online social interaction.
Students will learn how to design and conduct qualitative interview studies to research and analyze practices and strategies in the creation, consumption, and distribution of short-form videos.
More information is available at mint-lab.org and questions can go to Daniel Klug.
New S21 Course: 67-445 Seminar in Information Systems: Intelligent Agents
67-445 Seminar in Information Systems: Intelligent Agents is a research seminar on conversational intelligent agents that will be offered in Spring 2021 and still has plenty of seats! This course is designed for junior and senior level students who wish to engage in research at the intersection of information systems, artificial intelligence and psychology. The course has a unique and novel approach that allows students to get immersed in exploring current research on users’ behavior with intelligent agents and similar systems with an emphasis on the theoretical foundations, users’ perceptions and interactions, and various applications.
ICYMI: Dave Touretzky Named 2020 AAAS Fellow
Congratulations to SCS/IDeATe faculty member Dave Touretzky, who was recently announced to be a 2020 American Association of the Advancement of Science Fellow! This lifetime distinction recognizes important contributions to STEM disciplines including pioneering research, leadership within a given field, teaching and mentoring, fostering collaborations, and advancing public understanding of science. Read more at cs.cmu.edu.
ICYMI: Soft Tech: Open Hack Hours
Do you have ideas or projects you want to do, but don't know how?
Would you like to casually spend time with professors talking about ideas?
Are you curious about robotics and/or textiles and/or soft robotics?
Do you want to experiment with interesting materials and see what you might invent?
Come to our Open Hack Hours!
Everyone is welcome to join Prof. Chris Atkenson (RI) and Prof. Olivia Robinson (IDeATe) for Open Hack Hours on Wednesday evenings 7-9pm on Zoom.
Zoomline: http://bit.ly/SoftTechOH
Password: KnockKnock