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Origami comes to life with new shape-changing materials
Imagine opening up a book of nature photos only to see a kaleidoscope of graceful butterflies flutter out from the page. Such fanciful storybooks might soon be possible thanks to the work of a team of designers and engineers at CU Boulder’s ATLAS Institute.
Digital wellness program provides resources to combat social media’s negative psychological impacts
ATLAS Instructor Annie Margaret is creating a Digital Wellness Summer Program for middle-school girls that will provide strategies adolescents can use to minimize the negative psychological impacts of social media. Margaret designed and teaches two classes at ATLAS–Neurohacking, and Empathy and Technology.
Unstable Design Lab announces open call for second experimental weaving residency
ATLAS Institute's Unstable Design Lab, directed by Laura Devendorf, will host its second experimental weaving residency with the goal of developing new techniques and open-source resources to support collaboration and innovation between the fiber arts and engineering communities. Applicants should be open-minded, curious and above all deeply knowledgeable about woven structures and their behaviors. No knowledge of computer science, electronics or engineering is required for participation. The application deadline is Sept. 15.
Dale and Patricia Hatfield endow new ATLAS professorship
Through a generous gift, Dale and Patricia (Pat) Hatfield recently enabled the creation of the first endowed professorship associated with the ATLAS Institute.
ATLAS research spins off to Catalyze CU
Two teams from the ATLAS Institute were selected to participate in Catalyze CU, a highly selective, summer-long startup accelerator that combines world-class mentorship, funding and dedicated co-working space. CHROMAPRAXIS, a tattoo ink innovation company with research developed in the Emergent Nanomaterials Lab and founded by Assistant Professor Carson Bruns and Jesse Butterfield, a mechanical engineering PhD student, has been accepted. Also accepted is LoopSketch, a remote, real-time collaborative software platform for "sketching" musical ideas with friends, with research developed by ATLAS PhD Student Darren Sholes in the ACME Lab,
Eight ATLAS researchers receive Graduate School awards
ATLAS PhD students Katie Gach, Keke Wu, Fiona Bell, Kailey Shara and Sasha Novack, and Affiliated PhD students Gabrielle Johnson, Dreycey Albin and Varsha Koushik recently received Graduate School awards, grants or fellowships to support their research and creative work.
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ATLAS @ CHI 2021
ATLAS researchers have 10 published works and one special interest group associated with the CHI 2021 conference, the world’s preeminent conference for the field of human-computer interaction. Held virtually, CHI 2021, also known as ACM’s Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, took place May 8-13.
ATLAS Commencement Spring 2021
This spring 42 ATLAS students earned BS in Creative Technology and Design degrees from the College of Engineering and Applied Science, a quarter with Latin honors. Fourteen students graduated from the ATLAS master's program—three from the Information and Communication Technology and Design track and 11 from Creative Industries. Donna Auguste, who graduated from ATLAS with her PhD in 2019, was the guest speaker.
Spring 2021 ATLAS Student Awards
Graduating in May 2021with degrees in Creative Technology and Design, these graduate and undergraduate students are being recognized for exceptional accomplishments, having demonstrated initiative in their academic and extracurricular activities, completing outstanding research or creative projects, or contributing significantly to the ATLAS community.
Data accessibility: Leveling the field for those with intellectual and developmental disabilities
In a world where decisions of all kinds are based on statistical information, maximizing access to data is more important than ever. However, a recent study finds that common practices may be cutting large portions of the population out of the picture.
Laura Devendorf’s memory fabric innovations exhibited at Hong Kong museum
During the pandemic lockdown, Laura Devendorf used textiles woven with resistive yarns to document a particular part of her life–the daily “forces” that pressed against her body, especially her two children. Two of her memory fabric innovations are being exhibited at the The Centre for Heritage, Arts and Textile (CHAT) in Hong Kong as part of the Interweaving Poetic Code exhibition.
Monica Chairez's capstone project helps enhance hands-on learning for CU Dental School
Before she graduated in May with a bachelor's degree in Creative Technology and Design, Monica Chairez used the skills she gained at ATLAS to help solve several needs for CU Dental School of Medicine. Prior to the pandemic, dental students were introduced to oral surgery tools in the classroom. Now students who can’t attend in-person classes can at least tumble, rotate and zoom into these instruments just like they were holding them thanks to Chairez, who used the open-source software program "Blender" to create a virtual 3D library.
Spring 2021 Capstone Projects
CTD Capstone (previously TAM Capstone) is a rigorous, two-semester course sequence required for all Creative Technology & Design majors. Normally taken during the senior year, it involves the completion of a culminating project that goes through multiple rounds of faculty review and iteration. This small collection of project presentations gives a sense of the kind of work students complete in the CTD program.
Kailey Shara wins NVC 14 "Audience Choice Award" for Chembotix
Kailey Shara, ATLAS PhD student and a member of the Emergent Nanomaterials Lab, won the NVC 14 Audience Choice Award, adding $1,000 to the $11,000 she has raised for her startup, Chembotix, over the last month.
NSF CAREER award supports Danielle Szafir’s data-visualization research
The National Science Foundation has awarded Danielle Szafir a CAREER award to develop tools that rapidly gauge the efficacy of different types of data visualizations.
CTD undergrads win HackCU
CTD undergraduates Mason Moran and Colin Soguero, along with Colin's brother, Luke, a computer science major, won HackCU for their project, ChessLens, an augmented reality application that helps chess players improve their games.
Black, queer and an engineer: Meet LeeLee James, BTU Lab student assistant
LeeLee James, BTU's student assistant, is also the "Twirling Tech Goddess" on YouTube. Her show encourages radical diversity and inclusion by making learning tech more fun, accessible and relatable to people underrepresented in STEM.
Wayne Seltzer, MIT alumnus and ATLAS technologist-in-residence, shares his passion for making
Wayne Seltzer, ATLAS Institute's technologist-in-residence, was featured as one of four MIT alumni who are ‘making’ their mark with a love for building and tinkering. As a maker mentor, Seltzer has worked with many students and the BTU community. One of his most recent projects include a repurposed 1970s jukebox that plays digital recordings of performances by CU Boulder music students.
AR Drum Circle research envisions enjoyable remote jamming experiences despite latency
Long before the pandemic sent people scrambling into isolation, musicians have longed to jam virtually with others across the globe. But online jamming isn’t feasible because of latency, the tiny delay that occurs when data travels from one point to the next. ATLAS researchers and Ericsson Research project collaborators are exploring ways in which remote drumming experiences can be made more enjoyable despite the latency, including drumming with avatars.
