Collaborative Media Project with Vermont Symphony Orchestra

On February 5th, The Flynn presented a collaborative project with the EMC and the Vermont Symphony & Youth Orchestras for their winter concert, iLa Fiesta!. Six Champlain students worked with the VSO over the course of a year to create two experimental film pieces to be projected alongside two musical scores. For the first score, “Huapango” the team created a visual assemblage of insects, flowers, and butterflies that synchronized with the tempo of the song. The second piece, “Danzon” featured two local dancers, Hanna Satterlee and Elias Hill, who worked with the student team to choreograph a narrative performance that corresponded to elements of the score. The performance was a huge success and added a visually striking element that complemented the talented Vermont Youth Orchestra.

VermontBiz even wrote an article about it! “The collaboration empowered EMC students to lead a client-based, hands-on project related to their future careers and industry while getting paid,” they wrote. According to Sam Simpson, senior filmmaking major at Champlain College, “working on this project through the EMC has been a good opportunity to explore the film industry before graduation.” There are so many opportunities for experience in emergent media here!

This was the first year of a 3-year contract between the EMC and Vermont Symphony Orchestra. The 2nd project is already in production for the March 2024 performance. The team is exploring projection mapping and motion graphics. You may see the team on campus doing “Projection Mapping Pop-Ups” this semester to test their production pipeline. Can’t wait to see what they come up with next!

Sam (background) and Megan (foreground) ready to live VJ their films at the Flynn.

Co.Lab

The EMC has a new opportunity for first and second-year students where they work on design thinking projects centered around solving challenges on campus. This semester, they’re addressing “accessibility at Champlain.” These students develop collaboration skills while solving problems through an iterative design process including research, prototyping, project management, and presentation. It has not yet been determined exactly what the Co.Lab will be designing since they’re currently in the beginning stages– one team is exploring themes of mental health and another team is working on themes of food accessibility around campus.

What we can predict: Champlain will be a better place thanks to the Co.Lab.

EMC Faculty Fellowship

The EMC Faculty Fellowship for Spring 2023 has been awarded to Associate Professor Alexandre Tolstenko Nogueira to further develop a medical imaging tool that helps patients collect, consent, and share medical data. Surgeons rely heavily on 2D imaging sequences to plan for high-complexity surgery. This means that the doctors have to memorize all the structures before the surgery.

In 2015, Professor Tolstenko, along with a team of doctors and programmers, formed the organization InfiniBrains. This team created DocDo, an online tool that provides customized 3D reconstructions of each patient based on Computed Tomography and Magnetic Resonance. InfiniBrains was one of the first organizations to build this kind of technology in the world, and they were the first to sell it as a service.

The student staff for this project – Gus Goucher, Zach Rouhana, and Dillon Drummond are all talented programmers who will work with Professor Tolstenko to reimagine DocDo as an open-source project that will:

Change the model to be a self-service tool, and require a recurrency-based fee for data storing and editor usage
Create an intuitive open-source medical image editor that would give users a tool to select and share medical images

The EMC Faculty Fellowship is a great opportunity for students as well. In addition to gaining employment, students on the team build significant experience working on an interdisciplinary team, applying their skills to a real-world project, thinking critically and creatively, and bolstering their resumes and portfolios.