Who: All are welcome

What: ATLAS Expo

When: Thursday, May 4, 2023, 4–6p.m.

Where: Roser ATLAS Center, 1125 18th St., Boulder

Cost: Free! 
 

ATLAS Expo is back and, with over 120 student research projects included, it promises to be the biggest and most exciting Expo we’ve ever had.

This annual event highlights innovative work by graduate and undergraduate students in the College of Engineering and Applied Science studying Creative Technology and Design (CTD). Those attending the event can go hands-on with a rich array of games, interactive experiences, art installations, electronics and more.

Radical creativity and invention are the key concepts that bond the ATLAS community. It’s a place where engineering, computer science and design meet art and expression—all of which will be on full display at Expo this year. 

“As engineers and designers, we’re often heads-down in research. Expo is always exciting because our research labs and CTD students get a chance to show off the brilliant work they have been immersed in all year,” said Mark Gross, ATLAS Director.

From practical solutions to immersive experiences, ATLAS students will showcase a staggering range of concepts at Expo. Here is a small sample of what to expect:

• Scopaesthesia by Miles Lewis, Logan Turner and Sam Lippincott — An interactive installation featuring animatronic eyes powered by computer vision to merge the effects of scopaesthesia induced by human eyes with an awareness of digital surveillance.
• Solar Stones by Kai Hughes, Chris Gaines and Caileigh Hudson — 3D tactile replications of stellar rock carvings made by the Ancient Puebloan people in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, developed in collaboration with NASA's PUNCH team and FISKE planetarium. 
• The Rental Set by Annika Mctamaney — An open-source project using CNC technology to help renters own stylish, hardware-free furniture that is easy to move homes with and fun to create. 
• Storm Drain by Timon Hume — An atmospheric game level that takes the player deep inside a maze of dark pipes where they try to survive long enough to retrieve something valuable that has been washed away.
• Notes on Growing by Brie Musser, Riley Meere and Zander Gilbert) — An interactive audiovisual experience designed for students to meditate on the time and effort they put into their college career and enjoy the fruits of their labor. 
• HookBook by Ryan Monteleone and Tomas Garcia — A mobile-first web application designed for fishermen that makes logging personal catches & accessing lake reports, efficient and simple. 
• A Parting Gift To My Perfect Self by Nancy Yoder — A stop-motion animation abstracting one’s personal journey of overcoming chronic perfectionism through the use of collage. 
• Rally by ​​Jordan Evans, Olivia Blankenship — A social app that flips the script on social media, encouraging face-to-face interaction and the making of memories rather than isolation and app addiction. 
• spect by Frank Chytil and Anna Lowrimore — An installation featuring live footage of the audience’s eye on an arrangement of CRT TVs, evoking the reflection and dissection of oneself that occurs with digital interaction.

The two-hour event kicks off at 4 p.m. on Thursday, May 4, and is open to all. Free registration link above.

Off

Zack Weaver, an ATLAS lecturer who played a key role in establishing the ATLAS BTU Lab, stands in front of Maker Made 2020. Weaver is a creative technologist at BLDG 61: Boulder Library Makerspace and a curator for Maker Made.

A group of six artists and technologists connected to the ATLAS community contributed to Boulder Public Library’s , which runs through March 28.

Who: Everyone is invited

What: Maker Made 2022, a gallery show celebrating the diverse and inspiring work by local makers.

When: Runs through March 28. The exhibit is open whenever the library is open.

Where: Canyon Gallery, Boulder Public Library, 9th Street and Canyon Boulevard, Boulder

Cost: Free

The fourth annual gallery show celebrates the diverse and inspiring work by local makers, representing the collective energy and ambition of a community of inventors, designers, engineers, artists, craftspeople and tinkerers.

“There’s no better way to celebrate a period of creative output than a party and a show-and-tell, and that’s what Maker Made has become,” says Zack Weaver, one of the show’s curators and a creative technologist at BLDG 61: Boulder Library Makerspace.  BLDG 61’s makerspace provides maker education to the public for free in an “inspiring and inclusive environment.”

Weaver, an ATLAS lecturer who played a key role in establishing the ATLAS BTU Lab, says inspiration for Maker Made dates back to his days as a Carnegie Mellon student of Professor Mark Gross, now director of the ATLAS Institute. Gross, along with university colleagues organized annual exhibitions, similar to the ATLAS Expo, Weaver says.

The ATLAS Connection
Creative Technology and Design graduates Luciano Mejia and Chaz Golin helped curate Maker Made 2022. Hired as "Contract Killer Creative Technologists" in late 2021, the two were major contributors to the show’s success. For exhibits by members of the ATLAS community, see below.

Off

Off

Danny Rankin spoke at the TEDx MileHigh event, "Imagine" on November 16, 2019. Rankin directs the ATLAS Institute's Whaaat!?! Lab for game design and is a mentor at ATLAS’ BTU Lab.   

[video:https://youtu.be/iagWhasv6cI?si=qWEO3goVUo6rKdBC]

Off

One year after its  was unveiled, the Open Source Hardware Association (OSHWA) has certified more than 250 certified open hardware projects worldwide from a variety of domains. OSHWA, directed by Alicia Gibb, who also directs the ATLAS BTU Lab, developed certification project with help from a $56,000 grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation "to support the development of a dynamic, web-based platform to facilitate the adoption, licensing and improvement of open source hardware." 

The certification offers a new option in the landscape of Intellectual Property for hardware, and the new website includes a directory of open source projects, Gibb says. There is also an educational component for new users to understand what it means to open source their hardware.

"The certification intends to empower the open hardware community to follow the open source hardware definition with a licensing structure behind it, making it bear more weight through trademark law," she says. 

Off

Off

Off

Alicia Gibb

Today, Alicia Gibb is an ATLAS instructor, director of the ATLAS  and a nationally recognized champion of the open source hardware movement, but her journey started out with a very different trajectory.

In college, she studied art education and her first job was as a librarian. It was while she was completing one of her two master’s degrees—library science and art history—that she found her calling after learning to write code and build websites.

“I just fell in love with open-source software,” says Gibb. “As librarians, we were taught that freedom of access and freedom of information is paramount to libraries and protecting it is a librarian’s duty. These same freedoms drew me to open source.”

Soon after, Gibb learned about open-source hardware (OSHW)—devices whose designs had been released to the public so that anyone could make, modify, distribute and use them—and she was similarly attracted.

This week Red Hat, a publicly-traded, multinational software company providing open-source software products, recognized Gibb's influence in the OSHW movement by releasing a documentary-style video about her.   She was a keynote speaker at the Red Hat Summit in May in Boston, where she spoke to 4,000 attendees about why OSHW is crucial to innovation.

In 2010, Gibb organized the emerging OSHW conference with Ayah Bdeir, founder of littleBits, and in 2012 she formed the nonprofit,  (OSHWA), which aims to educate and promote the use and adoption of open-source hardware. A year ago she introduced the association’s new OSHW certification program, an OSHWA product logo that protects consumers by ensuring that certified products meet a uniform and well-defined standard for open-source compliance. This week OSHWA released a certification app.

“In Europe, people have no problem understanding the concept of open source,”  says Gibb, who also spoke about OSHW in Stockholm and Croatia. “It’s very much a part of their culture. In the United States, most people don’t want to share the source of what’s making them money, but when you share, you make more money.”

Gibb ticks off the reasons why OSHW is important.

Gibb directs the Blow Things Up (BTU) Lab at CU Boulder's ATLAS Institute.

Historically, engineers usually don’t receive royalties or recognition for product patents owned by their employers, she said.  And companies spend millions of dollars defending their patents, such as when Apple and Samsung engaged in a $400 million patent infringement suit over the design of cell phones and tablets, with costs being passed onto consumers.

“Patents themselves are expensive,” she says. “It costs $50,000 to get a patent, and if you have 50K to start a company, you probably don’t want to use it for that.”

With OSHW, the engineering community returns the favor of free hardware design by offering free product feedback. And anyone can incorporate another person’s improvements into their products.

As the founder of Lunchbox Electronics, an education-related open-source hardware company, Gibb is practicing what she preaches. Her company makes electronic components that are compatible with Legos, and consumers are free to design new parts for the toys and sell them without worrying about patent infringement.

“This is the beauty of OSHW,” she says. “The potential for innovation and creativity is limitless.

“Patents make you lazy. You depend on lawyers, and meanwhile you stop innovating.  As a consumer, you want the most innovative product on the market.”

Off

"The campers enjoyed their time in the BTU Lab, making great use of resources such as the laser cutter, 3D printer and electronics tools," said Seltzer. "We're looking forward to seeing some of these talented summer campers return as ATLAS undergraduates."

Sparkfun's provided the platform for the camps, enabling students to learn Arduino programming skills, controlling robotic sensors and actuators. One of the student groups developed soccer-playing robotics, in honor of the FIFA World Cup and the home countries of some of the international students.

Off

The assignment is to play with remote control cars. Well actually, break them up and use the parts to build something else. It's an apt assignment for Arielle Hein’s Object class, which meets in the ATLAS Blow Things Up Lab. 

Using screwdrivers, pliers and whatever else they can find, students pull engines and drive trains from cars, dump trucks and drag racers, and connect them to micro:bit controllers to create custom or ""  from cardboard and other recycled materials. Instead of soldered circuit boards, they use loose wires and crocodile clips and binders to connect components. As students' creations take shape and come to life, the tempo in the room steps up a notch as the sound of wiring motors blends with laughter and conversation. 

The March 2 workshop was led by Peli de Halleux, a principal software development engineer for Microsoft Research, who brought with him dozens of remote control cars purchased from thrift shops in Seattle. De Halleux’s workshops typically involve common classroom materials and scrap electronics for participants to make into interactive electronic devices. 

De Halleux uses this approach in middle and high schools to teach circuits because kids usually don’t have the dexterity to work with microcontrollers, soldering irons and breadboards. This workshop was the first time de Halleux had tried the approach with adults.

“It is a chance for students to work with motors without getting in the weeds of breadboards and circuits,” says Ben Shapiro, assistant professor in the ATLAS Institute and the Department of Computer Science.

Juliet Luna and her partner crafted a yellow submarine from cardboard and hot glue, attached markers as legs and then weighted the salvaged DC motor so the submarine shook when the motor was activated, causing the legs to draw on the paper below it. “We do a lot of fun things in the TAM program, but this workshop made me feel like a kid again,” says Luna, who plans to graduate in 2019 with a TAM minor.  

For Hein, it was exciting to watch her students use micro:bits for the first time. Some groups made relays using the micro:bit, which allows control of two motors. Other groups incorporated a second micro:bit as a wireless controller using the built-in radio feature of the board.

“They were able to do so much with the materials,” Hein says. “The micro:bit has a lot of built-in sensors and inputs, but the best part is that two micro:bits can be easily configured to communicate with each other over radio signals. This means that one micro:bit can be used to wirelessly control another.”

Luna says students helped each other with their projects. “The BTU lab is such a cooperative environment,” she says. “The space encourages students to take more risks and push boundaries. The people you get inspiration from don't need to be experts. It was a blast. What other class allows you to take apart cars and build cardboard submarines?”

 (For those who want to try this at home.)

Off