Every year, the Rochester Institute of Technology hosts Imagine RIT, an innovation and creativity festival “that showcases the innovative and creative spirit of RIT students, faculty and staff.” The festival is free to the public and really brings the community together to celebrate technology, science, art, innovation, and creativity! We had the chance to attend this weekend and we had a blast looking at all of the engineering projects on display.
Exhibits for All Ages
There are tons of different types of projects being showcased, but many fall within two categories: projects that help people, and projects that get children (and adults) excited about technology and science. The following exhibits are just a small snapshot of the many projects that were particularly exciting for the community.
FLUIDS ARE FUN: Hydraulic Shock Wave Table. This table was especially fun for the kids. By pushing different shapes through a stream of moving water, they were able to intuitively understand shock waves. This is something easily reproducible at home, so start building!
Tiger Paws: Meet the Future Mouse. This project, presented by the computer science students, allows you to control your PC by waving your hands in the air, rather than with a mouse. The tennis-like game demo was especially a hit for the young kids, while the older kids really enjoyed navigating through Google Earth with a wave of their hand.
While it is required that Engineering Senior Design projects upload all of their design files and documentation to the RIT Edge project server, there are so many other amazing projects that have no online information. If more groups wrote blog posts or posted build logs, Imagine RIT would have an even larger impact with the community and online.
Assistive Technologies
Motorized Pediatric Stander: This Senior Design Project consists of a motorized frame which allows a disabled child to move around their environment in an upright position. What a great concept and a cool device! Learn more about this well-built and well-presented idea on its project page on Edge.
Wheelchair Assist: The main goal of this augmented wheelchair project is to “stop the user from rolling back down an incline and to help the user with slowing the chair when moving down a slope.” The secondary goal of this project is to add a generator to the wheelchair that allows charging of cell phones and portable devices.
Manufacturing Technologies
Every university likes to show off their capabilities and what makes them unique. The Brinkman Lab at RIT has some very unique direct write capabilities, but they also have a menagerie of CNC machines, 3D printers, and other devices that were shown off at Imagine RIT. The following photos are of some very cool machinery that students can use to create their class projects, personal projects, and more!
Closing Remarks
This wonderful event happens every year in May and is always a ton of fun. It is an opportunity for the community to experience the future at the Rochester Institute of Technology: “On a sundrenched day, with summery temperatures, more than 30,000 people came to campus to tour the more than 400 interactive exhibits that comprised the sixth annual Imagine RIT.”
If you are ever in upstate New York in May, be sure to stop by Imagine RIT!
I was wondering when Hackaday would get around to my home town
I was there! It was amazing! The whole campus is literally filled with this for eight hours on a Saturday, and there is no lack of things to see!
My friend and i went there on saturday, it was great!
This is my school! It was a truly amazing event and loads of fun :)
I suppose that with UR and RIT here in Rochester, I shouldn’t be surprised to see a bunch of commeters from Rochester. Hi local friends!
(Pssst. You all might want to come and check out Interlock, Rochester NY’s hackerspace, tomorrow night 7-10pm Hungerford Building, Main street, door 7 for our open night. :D)
Hey Scott, you should put up a page for Interlock: http://hackaday.io/hackerspaces
I tried. I’m getting “502 bad gateway”
Is this meeting open as in open to the public? Is it OK to be an hour or so late?
Yes. Tuesday nights are always open to whomever wants to come by and check things out. It starts around 7, and is scheduled till 9, but some people, like myself, are often there till 11:30ish or so. (Every tuesday, so please visit next time!) :)
Yet another example of my home town’s constant state of innovation and progress!
Very proud to have attended!
Some of you might enjoy this video about the Imagine Festival as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzCxnvl_-YA
;-)
I graduated RIT in 2009. The resources available on campus are astounding. I was a member of the Formula SAE Racing Team and called the Brinkman Lab (we called it the machine shop) home for a few years. Imagine RIT started just as I was graduating, it is interesting to see that it has gained quite a lot of momentum now! Also, some of the innovations displayed at the festival are really really good.
I’m one of the members of the TigerPaws group, it was a blast showing off some of the things we’ve been working on to the community. I have actually posted the code for the GoogleEarth plugin on GitHub; It is under the user Ciccio99 if anyone wants to take a look. Thanks for including us in this post!