{"id":21420,"date":"2016-07-08T14:20:03","date_gmt":"2016-07-08T18:20:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/design.ncsu.edu\/designlife\/?p=2891"},"modified":"2016-07-08T14:20:03","modified_gmt":"2016-07-08T18:20:03","slug":"beyond-wildest-dreams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/design.ncsu.edu\/architecture\/2016\/07\/08\/beyond-wildest-dreams\/","title":{"rendered":"Beyond their Wildest Dreams"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Design<\/a><\/p>\n

In the design studios this summer, high school students from across the country and abroad sat in the dark, inside appliance boxes big enough to serve as unique, collaborative spaces, and mapped out the landscapes of their recurring dreams. Using glow-in-the-dark paint, fabric and other materials, and wearing headphones to limit outside distractions, the students designed dreamscapes that would become virtual reality (VR) environments. They photographed these with a 360-degree camera, uploaded the images to the Google app Street View to produce 3-D panoramic wraps, and then visualized them in Google Cardboard, an inexpensive VR headgear that pairs with a smartphone to divide the viewer\u2019s vision into two segments and merge those perspectives to simulate a 3-D environment. The results were immersive, virtual backdrops that generated a sense of space and dimension that they and their classmates could experience as though they were inside them.<\/p>\n

The dreamscapes were built in a five-day summer studio piloted this year by NC State Design Lab K-12 Education. Assistant Professor of Graphic Design Helen Armstrong taught the virtual reality prototyping studio, \u201cDreaming in VR\u201d at the graphic design camp (a second camp for architecture was also piloted this summer). Armstrong and Derek Ham, assistant professor of graphic design, developed the workshop together and premiered it in May at Moogfest, a festival\u00a0of music, art, and technology that was held this year in Durham, N.C. Armstrong modified the curriculum for the Summer Studio to serve high schoolers who know the basics of design and want to focus more deeply within specific disciplines.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_1388\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The studio opened with a day of brainstorming and creating visual solutions to design problems, followed by a day of research and developing branding projects. Armstrong developed prompts to keep the exercises fun. Students used their initials and drew brand attributes from a hat to further develop identities for a wide range of characters, from an optometrist to a butterfly collector.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_1354\"<\/a>
Armstrong describing VR technology.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But Armstrong was most enthusiastic about sharing with students new technologies like Google Cardboard and using real-world materials to create in VR. Rather than doodling in virtual reality to produce something physical, Armstrong wanted to flip the process and get her students to draw from concrete details to build their virtual prototypes. \u201cThe students wore headphones to experience the space [inside their boxes]. They got in and thought about what type of space they were trying to construct physically. That alone gave them a lot of ideas for their environment\u2014they could make an interface that felt like a steering wheel in their hands, or they could create characters above the head of a participant\u2014things they might not have thought of if they were building these in a virtual environment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Students collaborated to discuss ideas and construct their VR spaces. \u201cThe participants came together in groups and talked about recurring dreams they\u2019d had, and then they selected one recurring dream that they found particularly powerful and came up with ideas for building or reconstructing that dreamscape in a VR space,\u201d Armstrong said.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_1374\"<\/a>
Janvi Shani<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For some students, the Summer Studio was an opportunity to dive headlong into their passions. Janvi Shani, a rising senior from Flower Mound, Texas, in June attended Design Immersions A Camp, hosted by the Design Lab, and returned weeks later for this workshop. \u201cI really enjoyed the in-depth focus on branding and advertising [in the Graphic Design Summer Studio],\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m learning a lot of stuff I didn\u2019t know already and it really helps\u2014plus I get to meet new people, and the teachers and counselors are amazing.\u201d She hopes to pursue graphic design and was excited about the main project the students put together. \u201cWe\u2019re combining all of our projects together to make a big dream.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"IMG_1405\"<\/a><\/p>\n

For others, the studio offered a glimpse of technologies they hadn\u2019t tested, as well as a better sense of NC State\u2019s design offerings. Crista Quintos, a high school junior who traveled from the Philippines, enjoyed working with VR, which she said isn\u2019t as available to students in Manila, and may consider a future at NC State. \u201cI really liked NC State once I saw the campus and looked around. I had heard so many good things about it, and my interest has only grown. It seems like a really good school to go to.\u201d<\/p>\n

Quintos was able to attend in part through the Design Lab\u2019s Financial Assistance and Scholarship fund. \u201cThe scholarship really helped,\u201d she said. And attending the studio was a validating experience for her. \u201cI met really nice people that actually had the same interests as me, and teachers that listened to me. It\u2019s nice having people understand that it\u2019s not just a hobby or something I do in my free time; it\u2019s something that I\u2019m actually passionate about.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

In addition to the Marvin and Cindy Malecha Dream scholarship, the Design Lab has a Financial Assistance \/ Scholarship program that Design Campers can apply to upon registering for camp. The Design Lab Financial Assistance program provides partial fee waivers for students who apply based on family need and student motivation and interest. Students applying for Financial Assistance have the option of applying for additional support in the way of a Design Lab Scholarship by having a teacher or guidance counselor submit a letter of recommendation based on academic and creative merit. Design Lab Scholarship applicants are considered for additional assistance based on these criteria.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\"support-design-give-today\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Visit design.ncsu.edu\/designlab\/suppor<\/a>t<\/u> to make a donation. The Design Lab also works with Foundations and Organizations who are interested in creating special recurring scholarships for students meeting special criteria. Those interested in more information can reach out to Julia Rice at\u00a0julia_rice@ncsu.edu<\/u><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

by Julie Steinbacher [MFA ’16]<\/p>\n","protected":false,"raw":"\"Design<\/a>\n\nIn the design studios this summer, high school students from across the country and abroad sat in the dark, inside appliance boxes big enough to serve as unique, collaborative spaces, and mapped out the landscapes of their recurring dreams. Using glow-in-the-dark paint, fabric and other materials, and wearing headphones to limit outside distractions, the students designed dreamscapes that would become virtual reality (VR) environments. They photographed these with a 360-degree camera, uploaded the images to the Google app Street View to produce 3-D panoramic wraps, and then visualized them in Google Cardboard, an inexpensive VR headgear that pairs with a smartphone to divide the viewer\u2019s vision into two segments and merge those perspectives to simulate a 3-D environment. The results were immersive, virtual backdrops that generated a sense of space and dimension that they and their classmates could experience as though they were inside them.\n\nThe dreamscapes were built in a five-day summer studio piloted this year by NC State Design Lab K-12 Education. Assistant Professor of Graphic Design Helen Armstrong taught the virtual reality prototyping studio, \u201cDreaming in VR\u201d at the graphic design camp (a second camp for architecture was also piloted this summer). Armstrong and Derek Ham, assistant professor of graphic design, developed the workshop together and premiered it in May at Moogfest, a festival\u00a0of music, art, and technology that was held this year in Durham, N.C. Armstrong modified the curriculum for the Summer Studio to serve high schoolers who know the basics of design and want to focus more deeply within specific disciplines.\n\n\"IMG_1388\"<\/a>\n\nThe studio opened with a day of brainstorming and creating visual solutions to design problems, followed by a day of research and developing branding projects. Armstrong developed prompts to keep the exercises fun. Students used their initials and drew brand attributes from a hat to further develop identities for a wide range of characters, from an optometrist to a butterfly collector.\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_2898\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"750\"]\"IMG_1354\"<\/a> Armstrong describing VR technology.[\/caption]\n\nBut Armstrong was most enthusiastic about sharing with students new technologies like Google Cardboard and using real-world materials to create in VR. Rather than doodling in virtual reality to produce something physical, Armstrong wanted to flip the process and get her students to draw from concrete details to build their virtual prototypes. \u201cThe students wore headphones to experience the space [inside their boxes]. They got in and thought about what type of space they were trying to construct physically. That alone gave them a lot of ideas for their environment\u2014they could make an interface that felt like a steering wheel in their hands, or they could create characters above the head of a participant\u2014things they might not have thought of if they were building these in a virtual environment.\u201d\n\nStudents collaborated to discuss ideas and construct their VR spaces. \u201cThe participants came together in groups and talked about recurring dreams they\u2019d had, and then they selected one recurring dream that they found particularly powerful and came up with ideas for building or reconstructing that dreamscape in a VR space,\u201d Armstrong said.\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_2899\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"750\"]\"IMG_1374\"<\/a> Janvi Shani[\/caption]\n\nFor some students, the Summer Studio was an opportunity to dive headlong into their passions. Janvi Shani, a rising senior from Flower Mound, Texas, in June attended Design Immersions A Camp, hosted by the Design Lab, and returned weeks later for this workshop. \u201cI really enjoyed the in-depth focus on branding and advertising [in the Graphic Design Summer Studio],\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m learning a lot of stuff I didn\u2019t know already and it really helps\u2014plus I get to meet new people, and the teachers and counselors are amazing.\u201d She hopes to pursue graphic design and was excited about the main project the students put together. \u201cWe\u2019re combining all of our projects together to make a big dream.\u201d\n\n\"IMG_1405\"<\/a>\n\nFor others, the studio offered a glimpse of technologies they hadn\u2019t tested, as well as a better sense of NC State\u2019s design offerings. Crista Quintos, a high school junior who traveled from the Philippines, enjoyed working with VR, which she said isn\u2019t as available to students in Manila, and may consider a future at NC State. \u201cI really liked NC State once I saw the campus and looked around. I had heard so many good things about it, and my interest has only grown. It seems like a really good school to go to.\u201d\n\nQuintos was able to attend in part through the Design Lab\u2019s Financial Assistance and Scholarship fund. \u201cThe scholarship really helped,\u201d she said. And attending the studio was a validating experience for her. \u201cI met really nice people that actually had the same interests as me, and teachers that listened to me. It\u2019s nice having people understand that it\u2019s not just a hobby or something I do in my free time; it\u2019s something that I\u2019m actually passionate about.\u201d\n\n \n\n

\n\nIn addition to the Marvin and Cindy Malecha Dream scholarship, the Design Lab has a Financial Assistance \/ Scholarship program that Design Campers can apply to upon registering for camp. The Design Lab Financial Assistance program provides partial fee waivers for students who apply based on family need and student motivation and interest. Students applying for Financial Assistance have the option of applying for additional support in the way of a Design Lab Scholarship by having a teacher or guidance counselor submit a letter of recommendation based on academic and creative merit. Design Lab Scholarship applicants are considered for additional assistance based on these criteria.<\/span><\/em>\n\n\"support-design-give-today\"<\/a>\n\nVisit design.ncsu.edu\/designlab\/suppor<\/a>t<\/u> to make a donation. The Design Lab also works with Foundations and Organizations who are interested in creating special recurring scholarships for students meeting special criteria. Those interested in more information can reach out to Julia Rice at\u00a0julia_rice@ncsu.edu<\/u><\/a>.<\/em>\n\n \n\nby Julie Steinbacher [MFA '16]"},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NC State College of Design’s Design Lab offers immersive summer programs for middle and high school students who want to experience the many facets of design. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":4474,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"source":"","ncst_custom_author":"","ncst_show_custom_author":false,"ncst_dynamicHeaderBlockName":"","ncst_dynamicHeaderData":"","ncst_content_audit_freq":"","ncst_content_audit_date":"","ncst_content_audit_display":false,"ncst_backToTopFlag":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1],"tags":[17,15],"class_list":["post-21420","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-giving","category-uncategorized","tag-design-lab-k-12","tag-graphic-design"],"displayCategory":null,"acf":{"ncst_posts_meta_modified_date":null},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/design.ncsu.edu\/architecture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21420","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/design.ncsu.edu\/architecture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/design.ncsu.edu\/architecture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design.ncsu.edu\/architecture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design.ncsu.edu\/architecture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21420"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/design.ncsu.edu\/architecture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21420\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design.ncsu.edu\/architecture\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/design.ncsu.edu\/architecture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design.ncsu.edu\/architecture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design.ncsu.edu\/architecture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}