Autumn Comes to the EMC

By: Reagan Lee, ’22

The Emergent Media Center (EMC) staff and student employees always have several projects brewing! Now that the trees in Burlington are finally starting to show their rainbow of autumn colors, the EMC is excited to showcase our newest variety of projects, all of which aim to utilize creativity to educate, inspire, and innovate.

William Wilms of the Shaman IQ project takes 360 video of some scenic forest in Vermont.

SHAMAN IQ

Shaman IQ is a virtual reality experience that hopes to offer people a mental reset in their busy lives. Using 360 video capture of scenic Vermont overlayed with VFX, it hopes to provide a Shamanistic meditation experience, which can help invoke a deep relaxation and mental reset for those that use it. The people on the project hope to achieve a twofold goal: to help people unwind, and to showcase the multifaceted capabilities of Unreal’s VR engine. 

Project information provided by: William Wilms (Filmmaking, ‘20), JJ Robertson (Game Art & Animation, ‘20)

MxRPC

This project is one with the end goal of education via an interactive, augmented reality format. It hopes to educate young people interested in technology about computer components & how to install programs and diagnose problems, all through a fun, interactive augmented reality landscape that utilizes cooperation between teacher and student, and avoids the need for a costly set of equipment that would usually be required to teach students such skills. 

Project information provided by: Cameron Belcher (Game Programming, ‘20), Christopher McCammon (Game Production Management, ‘20), Lauren Ritze (Game Design, ‘20), Zoe Moss (Graphic Design, ‘20)

Team Photo left to right: Cameron Howell, Anthony Pascone, Leo Robles, Anna Margotta, Steven Baumann, and Skylar Chandler.

SANDBOX TEAMS

Sandbox teams are a little different than normal project teams, in that they offer students an opportunity to create and work on a project that is not client-based. These teams are led by a faculty adviser and work for a semester to create their project, with every semester differing from the next, often delving into realms of experimental or cutting-edge technology. There are currently two Sandbox teams working at the EMC. Sandbox 1 is currently building a project around creating an augmented reality experience where users interact with a pet and use Near-Field Communication (NFC) enabled cards to unlock new items that they can use to interact with their pet. Sandbox 2 (Habitus Mundi) is aiming to spread the message of environmental conservation, after players navigate through a variety of player-changed worlds. It focuses on the message of environmental sustainability and hopes to impact how people view the world’s conservation.

Project information provided by: Steven Baumann (Computer Science, ‘20), Brett Schwartz (Game Production Management, ‘20), Anthony Pascone (Game Programming, ‘20), Austin Roorda (Game Production Management, ‘20)

Technical INTERNS

In addition to student employees and general staff, the EMC has a posse of technical interns that work to research emergent ideas that they turn into pitches which could eventually become future projects for the EMC to develop. The interns are led by their Intern Mentors, who may have been gone through the Technical Intern program a previous semester or year, and who assist them with their research and direct them on how to best use information literacy to create detailed proposals and maintain data quality. The interns have a wide variety of topics that they research, and get to learn professional skills, information literacy, and emergent topics the EMC wants to tackle. 

Project information provided by: James Van Nuland (Game Production Management, ‘20), Nicole Scarano (Game Design, ‘23), Khalil Lyons (Game Programming, ‘23), Daniel VanRyn (Game Programming, ‘23), Matthew Conrad (Game Art & Animation, ‘22), Maxwell Van Walsen (Game Programming, ‘23), Austin Turk (Game Production Management, ‘21)

Spencer Hobbs and Peter Coronato of the Video team having fun on the set.

UPKEEP TEAMS

Although they don’t work on projects with specific end goals, the Operation, Communication, and Video teams work to manage content for the EMC, keeping ideas flowing and things running smoothly. The Operations team is always doing something to maintain the quality of the EMC environment, providing information and technology assistance to staff and student workers. The Communications team creates content to showcase all the exciting buzz happening at the EMC year round, whether it be social media posts or word-of-mouth. The Video team works to create engaging and dynamic visual content that explains or highlights different projects, events, or people that are important to the EMC. 

All of our teams are hard at work on their respective duties, and the fall season at the EMC is well underway. Here’s to another productive and creative semester!

Project information provided by: Jen Adrian (EMC Staff), Reagan Lee (Psychology, ‘22), Abraham van Overbeeke (Game Production Management, ‘22), Carly Freeman (Graphic Design, ‘20), Daniel Baker (Filmmaking, ‘22), Justin Reaman (Undeclared, ‘22), Spencer Hobbs (Filmmaking, ‘20), Michael Kashian (Game Programming, ‘23), Peter Coronato (Filmmaking, ’20)