Post by Dyani Robarge, Design Education Fellow at Episcopal School in Baton Rouge, LA

NuVuX is going strong in Louisiana. The program has just kicked off another semester at the Episcopal School of Baton Rouge and students have adjusted well to the school’s beautiful new build space.

The engineering-focused studios are taking a dive under Louisiana’s watery depths this spring. Students in the “Swampbots” studio will design robots that float along the swamp’s surface, scuttle along the shoreline or traverse the banks of the Baton Rouge lakes system in order to aid with the area’s ecological restoration efforts.

Our entrepreneurship studio, “Culinary Crossroads,” is partnering with students at the Karam House Foundation in Istanbul, Turkey to design and market food products that appeal to an international audience. After developing a regional dish and tailoring it to another culture’s tastes, students will develop a business plan and marketing campaign for their food product.

In what ways can our words occupy our surroundings? Through a series of design and writing exercises, students in the humanities-based studio “Space and Place” are analyzing the city’s makeup, histories, and the lives of the people behind neighborhood stories.