Living Walls utilize the technique of converting a conventional horizontal garden into a freestanding, mobile, and aesthetically pleasing structure capable of transforming an open space into a private space.  Each living wall rests on a mobile tub, allowing for the necessary mobility to conform to any environment. Suspended from the top of the aluminum frame, wires hold a series of troughs, containing shallow root plants, growing from the nutrient rich water generated from the aquaponics system.The symbiotic relationship between the vegetation and fish is key to sustaining a micro ecosystem. Within this relationship, fish waste provides essential nutrients for the plants which in turn  filter the water for the fish. The water is recycled by pumped through the system numerous times which reduces water usage by 90 percent.

This project addresses the growing need for functional and tasteful spaces within spatially constricted urban areas. Work spaces with an open concept have been proven to allow for elevated productivity and collaboration; however, negatives include external distractions, heightened risk of sickness and even elevated anxiety. We perceived the solution to this issue would be a smaller and more private space within an open concept floor plan. This new space will compensate for the loss of privacy and add leafy relaxation to any stressful work environment. The are of which these growing cubicle partitions are capable of siphoning off can accommodate around five workers comfortably.

"Genius camp" is a film made for incoming NuVu students to introduce them to the rigorous studio process. Certain elements of the film were made to give a more casual tone. For instance, the film is narrated by a senior student to emulate a one-on-one coaching session. The comical and light-hearted tone that is consistent throughout the video is partially inspired by youtube videos. To keep production simple while maintaining a certain level of polish, the video's visuals are limited to a narrator speaking in front of a NuVu pink background accompanied by props and animations.

Lucy:

Girls are being stereotyped and deprived of STEM education and opportunities starting at a young age, with the result that only 24% of STEM workers are woman. With the rise of robots, society is beginning to shift to a STEM oriented world so it is important to get young girls interested in it. The Speak Up Pop Out Mural encourages girls while also educating them about influential women who they can look up to for inspiration.

Hopefully, the mural will soon be installed in an elementary school where it can inspire young girls everyday. The from of the mural is a scattered image split into seven different shapes, each with a different theme. Each section is based off of a woman in STEM and has objects related to them. For example, one panel is designated to Katherine Johnson who worked at NASA as a mathematician and calculated the trajectory for the first flight to space. So, her section has poster saying “we can do math too” and a plane flying above it. Each section is made of an acrylic base of either pink, blue, yellow, or purple, and has acrylic pieces cut into objects that are layered on top in more fun colors. Using clear acrylic panels and 3D printed brackets, the whole mural can be assembled and attached to the wall with nuts and screws. Also, one of the acrylic panels for each shape has a description of the woman that it is based off. The fun colors and divided shapes is based off of 80’s pop art, and is fun and eye catching in order to attract young kids. The whole piece is about 4 ft tall and 3 ft wide.

Annabelle Turner:

An acrylic wall-sculpture designed to encourage and inspire young girls to study STEM subject and enter STEM fields.

        The Speak Up Sculpture is designed to educate and inspire little girls to join STEM fields.  As of 2017 only 24% of STEM workers are female. One of the reasons women  don't pursue STEM is that they are not informed about other women in STEM, and don't want to be the only woman in a STEM job. Girls often grow up thinking that men are better at STEM, even though they often score the same to better than boys on STEM based tests. This project tries to inform and encourage young girls that they too can be successful at STEM. With acrylic boxes, the layered sculpture uses bold contrasting colors to catch the attention of young children. Upon closer inspection, each box is themed to fit with the short bibliography on the side. Each box was assigned a different woman in STEM whose achievements aren't widely known. The bottom left section is dedicated to Marie Curie, who discovered radium and polonium. She was a chemist who worked with radioactivity. On this section we added a beaker with puffs coming out to touch upon the fact that she was a chemist. This sculpture targets young girls so that they can grow up being encouraged to do STEM.

Jackson Enyeart-

Polyphonic Fun is an escape course for children in Reyhanli, Turkey that explores the concept of sound through body movement and heightening one’s senses by taking others away.

The project is an escape course for children in Reyhanli, Turkey who are in need of a communal playspace. The first part of the escape course is a pitch-dark tunnel maze where children must rely on sound to navigate their way out of. When they pull a string on the floor of the tunnel, the bell in front of them will ring. By following the bells to the end, the kids escape the maze and reach an open area where tilting pads hang from ropes. The maze is currently being worked on by students at the Karam House. When the children jump onto pressure points on the pads, an orchestra of sounds will be produced using recordings of different instruments such as strings, brass, and wind instruments. To make these sounds, one will use an Arduino, accelerometer, and Max MSP. The accelerometer measures the coordinates [?] of the tilt and note of the instrument will change with the tilt.  Each pad will use one instrument playing up to three different notes. This playground structure will act as a small orchestra. The children will explore  sound and the creation of music through body movement.

Lina Huang-

Suspended musical balance boards designed to allow young Syrian refugees to use their whole bodies to explore sound and create music.

Polyphonic Fun is designed to enhance a temporary playground created for young Syrian refugees in Reyhanli, Turkey out of a series of wooden cubes. Implementing musical play structures will encourage children to explore sound through the movement of their bodies. Each suspended balance board in the set plays sounds to resemble different instruments when the pressure sensor attached is triggered. When children step onto the board, the pressure sensor triggers the musical note C and plays notes of the C Major arpeggio based on how it is tilted. To improve the original version, each balance board now has a wooden hemisphere attached underneath to enhance the stability. Ropes run through the center of the boards to act as handles. The sounds are programmed in MaxMSP,  which has a larger sound library with more pleasant sounding notes. An accelerometer under the board reads the coordinates of the board's orientation to trigger note changes based on how it is tilted. 

Incorporating music into a playground attracts and exposes children to the idea of music. The musical playground structure allows children to interact more with their bodies and exposes them to the sounds of a variety of musical instruments from a young age. The design of the structure nudges children to experiment with their sense of balance and becomes a memorable musical and physical experience.

Lilian Jochmann:

A unique water bottle that encourages shy, young kids to interact with others using colored lights that correspond to the user’s mood. With the iconic design of a see-through disk, a button is pushed to cycle through different RBG LED colors to represent several emotions. 

For many years, mood rings were a fad among kids, but while fun, they are useless for the accurate conveying of mood since the changing colors correspond to body temperature. Enter the Communi-Canteen, a water bottle that the user sets to represent their emotions at that time. By simply pressing a button that cycles through six colors that correspond to a mood, children can display their emotions to anyone who looks at the bottle. This bottle is a fun gadget for any young person but can also be used as a conversation starter for kids who have trouble expressing their emotions. It’s often hard for kids to reach out to others especially if they don’t know each other. This bottle will make that process easier. It also can be used in classrooms to help children to communicate with their teachers when they’re confused or sad.

A resin-based disk-shaped bottle printed on a form printer, the bottle has several RGB LEDs inside connected to a micro Arduino. The outside of the bottle has the names and corresponding colors of the six emotions. The Communi-Canteen itself can be easily carried with binders and notebooks and slipped into a backpack or purse because of its flat form.

Gus Jochmann:

A resin-based water bottle that encourages young children to interact with one another using colorful lights that correspond to one of six emotions. The bottle is shaped in the form of a flat disk that can be stacked with binders and notebooks at school.

The Communi-Canteen is a resin-based water bottle that can light up to show the user's mood and feelings. The disk-shaped bottle is embedded with RGB LEDs that are controlled by an Arduino and a breadboard. The user presses a button to cycle through the mood colors, which diffuse throughout the bottle. The Communi-Canteen is a fun gadget for any young person but could be especially helpful to kids with social issues, as it allows the world around them to understand how they are feeling. For example, a yellow light may mean “I'm confused”, prompting a teacher may to come over and talk privately to that kid if he did not want a child reluctant to talk in front of the class.

Approximately 40 million Americans of all ages currently take antidepressants, and even more have tried them in the past. People don't always know what to expect when starting anti-depressants, and thus there are many misconceptions about them, such as the hope for an instant or cure-all drug. Antidepressants can take weeks to take effect, especially if a dosage increase becomes necessary, but the side effects will come faster, although they may fade with time or a lower dosage. The film Black Box portrays artistic exaggerations of a wide variety of anti-depressant side effects ranging in severity from uncommon effects such as ear ringing, seizures, nightmares, and memory loss, to more common effects like nausea, lightheadedness, weight loss or gain, low libido, lack of affect, and most concerningly, suicidality. The film's main character attempts to overdose on the medication, a surprisingly common event despite deaths from prescription medication overdose being rare, and gets better when psychotherapy and a new medication are added to her treatment. The message of this short film is that antidepressants are meant to help the recovery process, not be the recovery process, and that they require patience for a chance of improvement. This film was made using Adobe Premiere Pro and Adobe After Effects, to add the compelling visual portrayals of the drugs. The hope is that Black Box will help people in need of psychiatric treatment have more realistic expectations of what's ahead of them, and give people who've already been through that system something that they can relate to. 

Further Reading on Antidepressants:

http://www.heretohelp.bc.ca/visions/medications-vol4/myths-about-antidepressants

https://www.uptodate.com/contents/depression-treatment-options-for-children-and-adolescents-beyond-the-basics#H5

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/teen-depression/in-depth/antidepressants/art-20047502