DMI Alumni Welcome Incoming Class with the First DMI TuneUp
By Kent Millard
How do you help expose a diverse group to the wonders of dynamic media and give them a taste of some of the things they might want to explore during their time at DMI? How do you give them “the BIG picture” and help them bond with their classmates?
The DMI program attracts people from a broad range of disciplines; from filmmakers and designers, to programmers and architects, there isn’t really a "typical" DMI student. As a result, the first semester at DMI can be a bewildering experience as each individual attempts to understand the scope and possibilities of dynamic media and incorporate it within their own area of interest.
To help incoming first year students hit the ground running in September, a group of DMI alumni led by third year student Kent Millard launched the first DMI TuneUp, a weeklong series of classes and workshops. These four-hour nightly classes provided an introduction to information design, prototyping, stop motion, sensors, visual design, documentation and presentation. Each class included a lecture and a collaborative project to allow students to work together and extend their range of solutions. The projects encouraged them to try out everything from using breadboards and sensors to building the “perfect” paper airplane and visualizing the results to creating a poster of their design hero to producing a time machine using stop motion. Several second year DMI students participated in the TuneUp and worked side-by-side with the incoming students.
Based on the feedback that we received from participants, the first TuneUp hit the mark of providing a DMI smorgasbord for people to sample while allowing them time to get to know and work with each other.
Many thanks to the DMI alumni who created and led the TuneUp classes whose talent and commitment were essential to making this happen: Jason Bailey (Prototyping), Chris Field (Stop Motion Workshop), Alison Kotin (Sensors Workshop), Joe Liberty (Documentation), Dennis Ludvino (Documentation and Presentation), Heather Shaw (Visual Design) and Alex Wang (Sensors Workshop). Special thanks to Jan Kubasiewicz and Brian Lucid for helping shape the TuneUp and their enthusiastic support.
Kent Millard is a third-year DMI student who organized the TuneUp and taught the Information Design class.
