Starting a new lab during COVID-19 Academic Year of Fall 2020-21
The COVID-19 pandemic and fully remote teaching posed a challenge for launching a new lab. I immediately adapted a plan to install and test a smaller-scale set of equipment and software in the basement of my College rental house so we could open to students as soon as we emerged from the remote-only instruction.
In designing the capabilities of the new lab, I studied existing labs including the Barnard College Movement Lab, the USC School of Cinematic Arts motion-capture volume for virtual production, the Arizona State University iStage, the Drexel University Immersive Research Lab, and the University of Washington Reality Lab. I wanted to create a space that would be unique among liberal arts colleges by offering a comparable wide-range of top-end creative technologies, but in a liberal arts environment that excels in solving problems that draw solutions from many disciplines and exclusively involve undergraduates in the research.
The following links document the installation and tests done in the basement to prototype the equipment and software that will make up the new lab.
Rear-projection Immersive Display
Vicon Shogun Performance capture system
Virtual Duck Pond with motion-tracking and floor projection
New Home for the Lab (first look renovations and installation)