Building civic pride and engagement are essential for cities to thrive. This semester, teams of Creative Technology and Design (CTD) master’s students developed proposals in coordination with the City of Denver aiming to do just that.

The CTD program engages students in pursuing practical solutions to real-world design challenges by blending behavioral insights, technology, branding and marketing, and physical objects. This comprehensive approach can yield more meaningful outcomes than one-off fixes are often able to achieve.

Indeed, while CTD students pursue unique paths focusing on creative industries, social impact or performance technology, they also work on cross-disciplinary team projects that push their boundaries and prepare them to succeed in careers across many industries.

Many methods to design
This year’s cohort had the opportunity to collaborate with the City of Denver to propose solutions for two initiatives as part of Design Methods, a foundational class all CTD students complete.

By nature, good design has no one right approach. Design Methods, taught by Derek Friday and John Breznicky, familiarizes students with many different ways to address design prompts, including the concepts of deliberate observation (e.g. cultural probes, ethnography); “problem finding” and “design thinking”; “wicked problems”; iterative design; and alternative generation and assessment.

The class culminates with month-long final projects in which teams collaborate on proposals to  address real-life design needs. This semester, four teams of CTD master’s students worked on projects in partnership with the Denver Mayor’s Office to develop solutions to support two remarkable initiatives.

They delivered final presentations in ATLAS’s B2 Black Box Experimental Studio. In attendance were representatives from the City of Denver, including First Lady Johnston, and Tran Nguyen-Wills, Deputy Outreach Director, along with Josh Wills, Creative Director & Partner at Consume & Create. Each team’s members brought a variety of skills, talents and interests to their groups and collectively they proposed a series of multidisciplinary solutions.

Friday noted, “[The teams] were able to generate solid ideas based on the brief and using the process that we taught them during the semester with the caveat that [the process of] developing your own method for problem solving continues to evolve throughout your entire creative process… They were pros and we were really, really proud.”

Here is some of what the teams presented:

Little Saigon / Saigon Azteca

• Team 1 - Abena Gyimah, Julia McKeag, Harsita Rajendren, Shreya Pradeep Sekar, Justin Chan, Lavan Kumar Baskaran, Mythiresh Gajendra Babu
• Team 2 - Sylvia Robles, Colin Egge, Jax Whitham, Jacy Ashford, Ayesha Rawal, Noah Reardon
• Team 3 - Scott Ehrlich, Eli Skelly, Clayton Hester, Shraddha Shinde, Nick Barcalow, Arjun Ramachandran

is a vibrant cultural enclave known for its rich Vietnamese heritage and community dating back over 40 years, as well as a growing Hispanic community. The City of Denver has identified opportunities to enhance cultural preservation, spark economic development and engage the community in this district.

City designers presented this strategy: “Exploring the intersectionality of the AAPI and Latino/Indigenous cultures, including music, dance, and ceremonies, will result in a compelling brand that amplifies the rich heritage of the communities that call this Cultural District home.”

Three teams proposed comprehensive design solutions incorporating branding (logos, color palettes, typography) and digital solutions (web and mobile integrations) along with physical interventions ranging from modular planters to signage to walkability improvements.

In lieu of an ornamental archway over a busy thoroughfare to mark the neighborhood, one team proposed a pedestrian bridge incorporating cultural design elements, with the aim to improve accessibility and safety. This combination of aesthetic enhancement and cultural relevance combined with practical, human-scale problem-solving powered by technology exemplifies what makes the CTD program special.

Josh Will, who developed the project briefs the students worked from, noted in his feedback to one team, “Given the community’s curb appeal—or lack thereof—it’s a very vibrant district and community, and you have done a great job of taking everything that exists on the inside. When you go into a restaurant or any of the businesses, the community is very welcoming and energetic, uplifting, bright and vibrant. And throughout your entire visualization and also the physical planters and archways—you’ve taken what exists inside and brought it outside.”

Give5 Mile High
Team: Aaron Neyer, Elizabeth Saunders, Pavan Dayal, Shawn Duncan Jr., Stephanie Babb

is a citywide volunteer initiative led by First Lady of Denver Courtney Johnston and the Mayor’s Office outreach team. This program empowers Denverites to come together to strengthen the community through collective service.

The City of Denver’s design team identified two key needs to ensure Give5 Mile High success:

• A technology solution to support and connect volunteers, organizations and local businesses.
• A marketing campaign to raise awareness among key stakeholders.

The student team presented a detailed mock-up of a mobile app designed to simplify connectivity and improve participation in Give5 Mile High. They also built a comprehensive brand and marketing strategy incorporating social media and local influencers to boost program awareness and engagement.

In her feedback to the team, First Lady Johnston said, “This is exactly what we were hoping [the team] would achieve. It made sense to think this should be a very user-friendly app that invites people to participate, and you all did it. This is incredible. I love that there are lots of things we didn’t even think about that you can do.”

Mayor Johnston was able to view the presentation remotely and added, “What I love about it is that it fundamentally understands and accelerates the two major principles of the project. One—how to make it so much easier for folks to sign up—the ease of sign-up is so powerful that the app makes possible. The second is the idea that the service is an act of community building. It is a way in which you serve with other people that binds you together, and this seamlessly connects you to other people.”

Additional project presentations
Aside from the work with the City of Denver, two more student teams presented projects combining engineering, design, data and art. Take a look:

Climate Threads
Team: Sara Runkel, Robyn Marowitz, Caitlin Littlejohn, Kate Rooney

Climate Threads aims to raise awareness about air quality and its impact on public health. Through data visualization and textile design, invisible disparities in air quality become visible and tangible. Explore the data on the .

Confluence
Team: Abe Homer, Shalimar Alvarado Cruz Hebbeler, Abhinav Mehrotra, Alexander LaFontaine, Cambria Klinger

Confluence is an interactive, immersive experience that explores the artistry of water. The dynamic fluid simulation can be interacted with by tilting a cairn on all four axes. Laser-cut and built using chipboard, the cairn represents the confluence of both the digital and physical world. The installation was completed with the use of projection, spatial audio, and soft ambient lighting for a peaceful and immersive experience. Learn more on the .

Designing through radical creativity and inclusion
Gordon Müller-Seitz, guest researcher and Chair of Strategy, Innovation and Cooperation at the University of Kaiserslautern-Landau (RPTU) in Germany, provided students support and guidance throughout the semester. In addressing attendees, he summed up the ATLAS program by saying, “I really appreciated that you live up to your motto that you strive for radical creativity. But it is not only radical creativity—it is also this radical inclusiveness.”

Learn more about the Creative Technology and Design master’s program

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After graduating in December 2018, Rafferty began working as an associate system engineer at Northrup Grumman Innovation Systems, where he develops and enhances National Security space tools to support satellite operations for military, commercial and scientific missions.

“The recruiter for my initial Northrup internship looked at my portfolio and was really interested in my work,” Rafferty says. “Of nearly 100 CU Boulder resumes, TAM was the only major he was unfamiliar with. It caught his eye.” 

The TAM Experience
Immersed in the interdisciplinary TAM program, Rafferty was able to work with faculty and advisors from a wide range of disciplines, allowing him the opportunity to chart his own path. He helped develop textiles with interwoven sensor technology in ATLAS’ Unstable Design Lab; he designed and built ActiveSAT360, an interactive, immersive visualization of thousands of satellites orbiting Earth; he created a virtual reality environment from the perspective of a moon on Saturn; and he made an astrolabe, an ancient instrument used primarily to assist with celestial navigation before the invention of the sextant.

“Joining TAM allowed me to combine my versatile skill set with a creative approach towards aerospace studies, focusing on the human factors in engineering,” he says. “It allowed me to follow my passion, which prepared me in unique ways for the aerospace industry.”

For his capstone project, Rafferty developed Pathos I, utilizing an EEG headset to visualize changes in electrical activity that take place in the brain during meditation. 

“I wanted my project to be very TAM-oriented; taking an advanced piece of technology to create an abstract understanding of a difficult topic was very appealing,” he says.

Beginnings
Growing up in Greenwich, Connecticut, Rafferty kept busy and pursued many interests. As a high school student, he volunteered as a soccer referee, taught sailing, founded the school’s engineering club, started a small business tuning and waxing skis, and joined the American Red Cross, becoming a certified disaster services volunteer.

He also attended Space Camp twice, the US Space Academy once, and was invited to attend the US Advanced Space Academy. 

He’s also a certified skydiver with 57 jumps under his belt.

While at CU Boulder, he joined a fraternity, gave campus tours, raced for the club ski team, attended more concerts than he can count and maintained balance through meditation. 

“Aidan was an incredibly hard-working student, and he was an extremely positive influence on every team he joined,” says Matt Bethancourt, senior instructor and director of the TAM program, who taught the class for which Rafferty and two other students made ActiveSAT360.  “I was blown away with what the ActiveSAT360 team came up with. It really made the final projects exhibition, Visualizing Space, something special.”

What’s next? Rafferty has his sights set on becoming an astronaut. He’s also excited about the possibilities of space tourism. 

“CU Boulder gave me a Swiss Army knife-like collection of skills. TAM is really unique,” he said. “Employers may not know what my degree is right away, but when they see what I can do, they get it. The industry recognizes the need for people who have technical skills and the ability to create something completely new with those skills.”

“Creative engineers will thrive in the space industry,” he adds.

What’s Rafferty’s advice for the incoming class of 2019 freshmen? “Follow your passion. Stick to it. Learn things that excite you—that’s where you will really shine.” 

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As a scholar, Klefeker’s travel expenses will be covered to attend the Grace Hopper Celebration in Houston, September 26-28, where she will present her research and have the opportunity to build relationships with other women in computing.

“I am super-excited to interact with fellow students and professionals and to learn about their research and exchange ideas,” says Klefeker.

An example of Klefeker’s research, “String Figuring: A Story of Reflection, Material Inquiry, and a Novel Sensor,” brings together material studies and cultural reflection, critically looking at our culture's norms and ideas on fiber arts and craft, to describe the design of a new and novel sensor. The string figure sensor is an early prototype for a string-based sensor that can “know something of its own shape” by measuring changes in resistance generated from knotting or crossing the string.  The paper, co-authored by Laura Devendorf, assistant professor of information science with the ATLAS Institute and director of the Unstable Design Lab, was published in the Extended Abstracts of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems and presented by Klefeker in Montreal in April during the conference.

"Jolie's String Figures project is about reflecting on what it means to work with materials and let the materials 'lead' the design,"  Devendorf says. "Her project shows that this process led to interesting and novel outcomes, as well as ideas for what kinds of playful interactions might emerge when we pay attention to existing behaviors and cultural games with yarn."

Klefeker says that because the conductive thread is so flexible, it could be embedded in various types of sensors in clothing. A wide range of ideas have been proposed for its use, including creating sensors that support gesture-based communication and choreographing an abstract dance using the movement of clothing in a dryer.
 
“The project was about creating something novel, fun and playful,” Klefeker says.

Klefeker is also the music director at Radio 1190 KVCU, the campus radio station, where she coordinates all new music, curates the KVCU music library and rotation, and hosts volunteer events.

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Emily Daub is fascinated by human interactions: How people change while in or out of relationships; how they value themselves in the context of their relationship status; how changes in relationships affect us; and how each relationship differs from another. 

On May 4, Daub brings her fascination to life in an ambitious dance performance that features a wide spectrum of dance styles and handmade costumes equipped with embedded computational and wireless communications technologies. 

Titled “The Show,” the performance is billed as a variety dance performance that “tells the story of how we shape and mold others (and vice versa),” writes Daub, who graduates in May with a bachelor’s degree from the ATLAS Institute’s Technology, Arts and Media (TAM) program, along with a minor in theatre and dance. 

Masterminding both the art and engineering is a comfortable role for Daub, which strikes some as unusual. “I've almost always been an outlier,” Daub says. “TAM fosters that spirit, allowing it to become an asset rather than a handicap.”

Daub entered CU Boulder as a chemistry major with plans to attend medical school, but soon decided it wasn’t the right path for her. A member of the Fashion Design Student Association (FDSA), she found her way to the TAM program via the Makers Collective, another student group. “Someone from the Makers Collective reached out with a project that involved inserting lights in clothing,” says Daub. “That caught my interest.” 

She worked on a swing dance skirt, inserting an accelerometer and 70 LEDs in the hem and coding them so the LEDs would light when the wearer spun. Soon after, she became the president of the Makers Collective, and because club activities happened in the ATLAS Blow Things Up (BTU) Lab, she learned about the TAM program. Since then, she’s created more than 20 pieces of wearable technology of varying levels of complexity, “The Show” being her most ambitious project to date. 

Daub says she couldn’t have reached this point without support, including funding from an Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) grant which covered all the materials. And working under the mentorship of Ben Shapiro as a member of the ATLAS research group, The Laboratory for Playful Computation, meant she was surrounded by a group of supportive graduate students. “Annie Kelly was so, so helpful,” says Daub, referring to a PhD student in the lab.

“The Show” has kept Daub busy since January, designing and sewing costumes, embedding microprocessors, sensors and NeoPixel LEDs, and programming each with unique light patterns that respond to movement and the wearer’s proximity to other dancers over time. 

In addition, she’s encoded a matrix of affinities between dancers, so that when characters with mutual attraction dance together, light patterns in their costumes reflect the personal chemistry and gradually converge. At the same time, analogous changes take place in the pair's dance styles, Daub says.

While the technical side of her work tends to draw the most attention, Daub prefers to be known for her artistry in a more holistic sense. She’s choreographed “The Show,” and will perform alongside six other dancers, and she’s proud of her costumes and how the embedded technology looks and works. “How finished products look is very important to me,” she says. “I've gotten to this point mostly because the things I make are beautiful and functional, not because they are technically complex,” says Daub. 

It’s the same way she’s always approached her projects, forming one coherent vision and then solving problems in order to realize it. “I’m motivated to achieve a specific outcome, not to just push my skills,” she says.

UROP Video

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