Recognition for HASS Student Inventors, Writers, Scholars, Researchers, and Gamers

A passer by  taking the opportunity of a brief look at the School of Humanities & Social Sciences through the window of awards won by its students in the last academic year would be permitted a moment of astonishment at the variety of prizes and recognitions accorded.  The awards our students received, from inside the university and from without, speak to the achievements of individuals; they help define the character and interests of the HASS student body; and they give real dimension to the often only outlined attempts to articulate the breadth of the School's academic offerings. 

Jennifer Ash ‘08, Zach Barth ‘08, and Peter Mueller ‘08, worked with Arts Professor Kathleen Ruiz on the CaAbility Games Research Project, leading an interdisciplinary student team made up of programmers, game designers, character and level artists, electrical engineers, and music composers to create a groundbreaking interactive game simulation to help individuals with disabilities develop life skills and obtain increased autonomy.

The CapAbility Project was created in collaboration with the Adult Services Division of the Center for Disability Services in Albany to develop a game that specifically addresses the needs of the center's consumers.

The game, called "Capable Shopper," simulates a shopping trip at a local super market. Players maneuver through the virtual grocery store - which is based on actual blueprints obtained from an area super market where the center's consumers often shop - using a specially designed joystick or a head mouse, depending on their individual mobility.

Barth, Ash, and Mueller worked on the CapAbility Research Project with teammates Darren Domingos '10, Ben Esposito '11, also competed in the 2008 Rensselaer Undergraduate Forum and Research Awards program.  The project has developed over the past four years and includes notable list of current students and alumni. more    The CapAbility Research Group was featured in a Channel 10 news segment. 

Eban Bayer '07 and Gavin McIntyre '07, who graduated with dual degrees in mechanical engineering and design, innovation, and society, won the $15,000 gold prize, at CTT Innovation Conference recently held in Boston, Mass.  Competitive Technologies (CTT) is a full service technology transfer and licensing provider.  The competition affords university students the opportunity to showcase their technological breakthroughs. The pair has started a new company, Ecovative Designs, to develop their environmentally friendly organic insulation made from waste agricultural materials, water, and mushrooms. The organic insulation could replace the traditional foam insulations in homes, which require petroleum for production and are not biodegradable. Featured in The Washington Post, the patented combination of water, flour, minerals, and mushroom spores could replace conventional foam insulations, which are expensive to produce and harmful to the environment. Bayer was also a runner up for the $30,000 Lemelson Prize in spring 2007. And, in December 2007, Ecovative Design was awarded £10,000 (approximately $20,500 U.S.) as a winner of the 21st Century Challenge Competition hosted by Oxford University's Saïd Business School.

Sarah DiNovo '08 and Louis Martinelli ‘08, Design, Innovation, and Society students, were awarded the CTT $10,000 silver prize for their invention, "Smart Badge." A next-generation law enforcement badge, the technology incorporates a variety of electronic safety features, including a camera, global positioning chip, and an officer's radio into a wearable badge. DiNovo and Martinelli also were among the five teams of students rewarded for imagining innovative ways to make the world a better place in the "Change the World Challenge" competition for fall 2007. Created in 2005 by Rensselaer alumnus Sean O'Sullivan '85, the competition is intended to support entrepreneurship education and inspire innovation to improve the human condition by providing a $1,000 cash award for ideas that will make the world a better place. O'Sullivan earned a B.S. in electrical engineering from Rensselaer, and was a founder and the first president of MapInfo, a global software company headquartered in Troy, N.Y. He has started a number of other companies and organizations, including JumpStart International, an engineering humanitarian organization headquartered in Atlanta, Ga.

Smart Badge incorporates existing technology packaged into a state of the art "wearable network," such as facial recognition technologies coupled with an interface to readily scan driver licenses so officers can easily identify persons of interest. The design integrates hardware components with law enforcement databases so information can be relayed back to an officer far quicker than the current protocol. The badge consists of a number of features including a camera, a barcode scanner, a GPS chip and the officer's radio.  Other significant applications for a similar badge could include uses for fireman and Emergency Medical Technicians, among others).  

Game Challenge Award Winners: The Rensselaer 2008 Game Festival offered the second Vicarious Visions Student Challenge to undergraduate teams competing in the one-day exhibition held April 24, 2008.  Five prizes were awarded to five teams: 1^st prize $500, 2^nd $400, 3^rd $400, 4^th $300, 5^th $100.  The teams' members were each awarded an equal share of their team's prize.  The diversity of majors of individual team members reflects the interdisciplinary character of game development and of the game team competitors.  Within the total of seventeen students who were on the winning teams, seven were from Electronic Media, Art, and Communication (EMAC) majors, five were Computer Science; three were from Mechanical Engineering, and two were from Games and Simulation Arts and Science (GSAS).  

The Winning Teams: 1^st Prize: Tech-Mechs:  Zachary Barth, Robert Cooper, Russell Krueger, and Michael Kwan; 2^nd Prize: Bit Bop, Kenneth Johnson and Perry Lynch; 3^rd Prize, Nova Radix: Ian Keyworth, Ray Coulter, Rory Perner, and Chris Mui; 4^th Prize, Audiotron: Jennifer Ash, Brain McDonald, Joseph Miller, Jacob Moore, and Daniel Nottingham; and 5^th Prize Magnaball:  Noah Kantrowitz and Trevor Sayre. more

The 2008 McKinney Competition   HASS undergraduate and graduate students dominated this year's McKinney Competition garnering 18 to 24 prizes and gaining recognition across all categories of the completion.  This year's prizes were presented by Russell Banks, renowned author of historical fiction, most recently of The Reserve.

The Competition is sponsored by the HASS department of Language, Literature, and Communication.  Since 1941 when the McKinney Prizes were first established, Rensselaer students have competed for cash prizes first in writing and now also in digital; media.  There are four McKinney categories.  Three are in Print Media for Fiction or Drama where the entry can be a short story, chapter from a novel, one-act play, or full-length play or screenplay; Poetry, preferably six or seven poems from each entrant; and Essays, any subject (class papers acceptable).  A fourth category is for Electronic Media, any presentation focusing on the word using electronic media. Fiction, drama, poetry, and essays using electronic media are encouraged. Also encouraged are interactive narratives, Net Art, and computer games (using interactive electronic media to communicate a story, message, or experience through narrative, audiovisual art, or game).  more