"Sometimes change starts with a bunch of people with diverse backgrounds and perspectives coming together and tinkering around with an idea," she said. 

Read the full interview

       
    Photo: Elliott Whitehead

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Sasha de Koninck, an Intermedia Art, Writing and Performance PhD student and a member of the Unstable Design Lab, will host a virtual “Future Heirlooms Workshop” at the Textiles from Home: Local Crafts, Global Conversations Conference on March 17, 3-5 p.m. MDT. During the workshop, participants will work with materials around them to create a future textile heirloom to be used for a specific future moment. Textiles from Home is a project of the Design Studies Department and the Center for Design and Material Culture at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and conference presentations focus on connections between textile making, domestic space, and local environments, historically and now. The conference includes sessions on “such of-the-moment crazes” as artful mending, embroidery, women in fiber mills and Scottish wool.

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“Designing Not Knowing,” March 11, 10:30 a.m. MST (12:30 p.m. EST)

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Her talk is a rapid-fire survey of research and creative work conducted in ATLAS labs over the last several years. “I had a lot of fun,” said Do. “I loved reading the comments afterward; students expressed so much enthusiasm for our work and faculty were so engaged. My favorite comment was presumably by a faculty member: ‘How do we prepare our university students for this?’ After so much isolation, it was great to reach out to so many people so far away.” 
 

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ATLAS affiliated PhD student Vinitha Gadiraju has received a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, a prestigious award that recognizes and supports outstanding students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

Advised by Shaun Kane, director of the Superhuman Computing Lab, Gadiraju researches and develops educational toys to help children who are visually impaired and members of their support network. More broadly, her research interests include assistive/accessible technology in education and designing tools to support classroom equity. 

"I am very grateful to the NSF for this fellowship for supporting my ongoing and future research," Gadiraju says. "This fellowship will allow me to iteratively design and build computational toys that support children learning Braille at home and in the classroom. It will also support direct user testing of these toys with children who are visually impaired, their families and teachers of the visually impaired." 

GRFP recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students in NSF-supported science, technology, engineering and mathematics disciplines who are pursuing research-based master's and doctoral degrees at accredited U.S. institutions. Fellows receive a three-year annual stipend of $34,000 along with a $12,000 cost of education allowance for tuition and fees, opportunities for international research and professional development and the freedom to conduct their own research at any accredited U.S. institution of graduate education they choose.

According to the NSF GRFP website, NSF Fellows are "anticipated to become knowledge experts who can contribute significantly to research, teaching and innovations in science and engineering" and "are crucial to maintaining and advancing the nation's technological infrastructure and national security as well as contributing to the economic well-being of society at large."

In total for 2020, the NSF awarded 26 Graduate Research Fellowships to ŷ���ڱ���Ƶ Boulder students.

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Jam Station promotes musical improvisation, also known as "jamming," among those who have difficulties learning to play instruments, said Pete Pascente, CTD master's student, who along with  researchers Torin Hopkins, ATLAS PhD student, Wayne Seltzer, ATLAS technologist-in-residence and Kellie Masterson, developed the project. Jamming is considered difficult even for experienced musicians, he said. 

"We wanted to allow people who know nothing about music to experience the joy of a jam - to collaborate and feel like they're part of a something a little bigger than themselves,"  Pascente said.  

The station is a 7-by-4 feet rectangular PVC cuboid, whereby four instruments crafted from everyday materials are situated so that each jam member faces a vertically oriented neopixel display.  Embedded sensors in Jam Station's instruments trigger complex and colorful light displays as collaboration between musicians improves, and these visual cues help novice musicians improvise music together.

"The instruments are designed to not resemble what we normally think of as instruments, so they're more approachable," Pascente said.

Initial survey results showed overall positive reactions to the experience, Seltzer said, with all six self-described "nonmusicians" rating their experience as "good."

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