ctd

Inside Sh!tty Hacks: An Anti-Hackathon at ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ��

Michael Kwolek — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 19:54:22 +0000

Inside Sh!tty Hacks: An Anti-Hackathon at ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� Michael Kwolek Thu, 02/05/2026 - 12:54

Sometimes the process of making and creating loses its “fun” streak, so why not put on a 24-hour hackathon that awarded the weird, wild, and possibly destructive nature of making and engineering?

Off

Traditional

White

Coding with creativity: How ATLAS students think beyond algorithms

Michael Kwolek — Mon, 01 Dec 2025 18:07:35 +0000

Coding with creativity: How ATLAS students think beyond algorithms Michael Kwolek Mon, 12/01/2025 - 11:07

Caitlin Rockett

With his computer plugged into a projector at the front of the room, Hudson Blankner, a freshman in Gabe Johnson’s Computational Foundations 1 class, displayed his final project: a trio of classic games—rock, paper, scissors; tic tac toe; and table tennis.

The assignment required students to build an interactive game using the programming skills they’d learned over the semester, and to experiment with different problem-solving strategies—including, if they wanted, “vibe” coding, the practice of prompting artificial intelligence models to generate code.

Blankner did try using AI, and he wasn’t subtle about his feelings.

“I coded this all in one prompt, but I really hate vibe coding,” Blankner told the class. “AI is like a Division I gaslighter. It took 15 prompts to make the game look like this.”

Johnson expects students to explore AI tools, as he sees more and more companies requiring software engineers to use AI to some extent to program more, and faster. But Johnson also expects students—like professional software engineers—to understand the logic behind their programs and learn to write their own code, that way they know what AI gets right, wrong, good, bad or mediocre.

“These students, for the most part, have not programmed before—they’re coming into this class fresh,” said Johnson, who teaches introductory computer programming courses for the Creative Technology and Design (CTD) curriculum at the ATLAS Institute. “Maybe some of them had taken ‘computer science classes’ in high school, but that’s often just building a web page.”

Engineering meets design

CTD degrees are granted through the College of Engineering, where coding and computational thinking are essential skills across disciplines. At ATLAS, CTD majors build that engineering foundation alongside deep design practice, giving them a holistic and strategic approach to problem solving. Rather than following trends or treating design as aesthetics alone, CTD students learn to analyze human needs and create solutions that are usable, meaningful and durable. That means students not only learn to code, they also build skills in web development, interaction design, physical prototyping, audio and video production, digital media, theory and project management.

“I think CTD students can better explain their programming work,” Johnson said. “Yes, they have the technical knowledge, but they fit that knowledge into the broader context of society, of designing for humans. Communicating what you are doing is almost more important than the thing you are doing. CTD students are able to explain not just what they did, but why and how and what else they considered. Telling a story is much richer—much more human.”

Creative logic in action

When presenting midterm projects, Johnson found first-time programmers in his Computational Foundations I class thinking outside the engineering box to solve problems. Laura Baker, a sophomore, wrestled with how to determine when a player-controlled bee had reached a flower at the center of a maze.

“This was an annoyingly difficult problem that seemed so simple,” Baker said. “I took an artist's approach using a simple Boolean statement and an array of RGB color codes: If the bee was touching the appropriate color, then it stopped moving. I was very proud because I didn’t use AI to help me. I tend to lean toward artsy solutions in all of my projects. The only setback with the solution I used for the bee in the maze is that you cannot change the color of the walls of the maze because then the RGB code will not link back up to the if statement correctly. It worked for my presentation, though.”

While Baker could have created a traditional hitbox math test to determine where rectangles intersect, Johnson was impressed with her solution: “She needed to figure it out, and she had a creative solution rather than the ‘right’ solution.”

Of course, Johnson teaches Computational Foundations students the “right” solutions as well, but he fosters unconventional thinking because it can lead to innovation—more necessary than ever in a world driven by generative artificial intelligence.

“Programming is in upheaval right now because of AI,” Johnson said. “Future programmers are going into a world where large language models and AI chatbots can do all sorts of creative-approximate stuff. Programmers need skills that AI can’t approximate. One of the main functions of a university is to teach people to think critically, because now we have machines that can do thinking-like things. So future programmers can either evaluate the machines and push back against them, or just roll over and let the machines win.”

A ‘joyful experience’

Johnson, who also teaches introductory programming classes for computer science majors, believes creativity is necessary for coding. Far too many people, he said, see programming as “an arcane mathematical thing.”

Creative Technology & Design

Learn more about the ATLAS Institute and CTD programs including undergraduate major, minor and certificate; professional master’s; and PhD.

Online info sessions about all CTD programs are held regularly throughout the year.

Prospective students can email atlascommunications@colorado.edu to schedule a student-led tour.

That creative mindset shows up in his students’ work. Computational Foundations I students blended math and design in midterm projects, with one student creating billowing clouds moving across the sky, and another coding a Price Is Right-style Plinko game simulator—both of which present a visualization of a Gaussian distribution.

“I teach Computational Foundations I basically in the same way I teach Computer Science 1300, except in Computational Foundations I, I have much more leeway in making it fun and design-oriented,” Johnson said. “I provide the most creative and joyful experience that you can have when learning to code, and let students figure out for themselves whether they want to learn more. And because it's so fun, many of them are enthusiastic about doing it.”

Baker—who had “very minimal coding experience before starting Computational Foundations”—said her view of coding has changed dramatically since taking the class.

“This class has shown me how creative coding is, that you can design with code and get an awesome, artistic output,” Baker said. “Coding has given me a new medium to make art with, and I’m very excited about that.”

Computational Foundations I teaches code as a technical and expressive skill.

Off

Traditional

White

Building robots, building connections

Michael Kwolek — Thu, 23 Oct 2025 21:41:53 +0000

Building robots, building connections Michael Kwolek Thu, 10/23/2025 - 15:41

On a Tuesday afternoon at a Denver public school, a group of elementary students gather around tables piled with Lego bricks, laughing and chatting as they carefully follow instructions to assemble their creations. A few minutes later, they’re chasing a small robot car around the classroom, laughing as it bumps along the floor.

Scenes like this are familiar to Casey Hunt, a PhD candidate at the ATLAS Institute. Each week, Hunt visits four Denver public schools as part of a collaboration with Inspire to Learn and Imagine, helping K–5 students explore engineering and coding through Lego robotics.

The after-school program uses the Lego WeDo 2.0 ecosystem—a kid-friendly robotics kit that empowers young learners to build moving creations and program them with simple code. “The goal isn’t just to teach them mechanics or coding, it’s to give them space to build, test and problem-solve together,” Hunt explained. “They take a lot of ownership over their creations, and that’s really fun to watch.”

Hunt facilitates each club session, helping students work through the weekly project, teaching basic engineering concepts and encouraging teamwork. All four schools tackle the same project each week, but students always find ways to make it their own—like the pair who built a sidecar for their minifigure passengers, then raced it gleefully across the library.

“It’s so fun to see them take pride in their creations,” Hunt said. “They find ways to make each build reflect their personalities or friendships, and I love watching them put their own spin on the designs.”

Beyond the joy of seeing students bring their ideas to life, the program aligns closely with Hunt’s academic pursuit. Her research focuses on how materials can teach people through making, drawing on constructionist learning theories. “I’m interested in how these ideas from education can be adapted to participatory design, building with communities,” Hunt said. “In Lego club, I get to watch how kids naturally negotiate, share ideas and make design decisions together—it’s a different context, but very similar to the collaboration I study.”

Hunt reflects on how these young learners engage with core STEM skills: reading and following design instructions, iterating when things don’t work and collaborating with peers to solve problems. “Their approach is actually a lot like my undergraduate students, just at an age-appropriate level,” she noted.

For ATLAS, programs like this reflect a broader commitment to community engagement and inclusive STEM education. The institute’s partnership with Inspire to Learn and Imagine extends its impact beyond the university—fostering creativity, curiosity and confidence in the next generation of makers.

By connecting university researchers with local classrooms, outreach efforts like the Lego club not only support young learners but also give graduate students meaningful teaching and mentorship experiences outside the lab.

“This kind of work shows how our research and expertise can ripple outward,” Hunt said. “It’s a reminder that what we study in the lab connects to real people—and real joy—in the community.”

ATLAS PhD candidate Casey Hunt brings STEM learning to local classrooms with Lego robotics.

Off

Traditional

White

The weight of words in the age of AI

Michael Kwolek — Mon, 20 Oct 2025 17:41:52 +0000

The weight of words in the age of AI Michael Kwolek Mon, 10/20/2025 - 11:41

Caitlin Rockett

ATLAS Academic Programs

Go to the ATLAS Institute website to learn more about Creative Technology & Design programs including undergraduate major, minor and certificates; professional master’s and PhD.

Info sessions: online sessions on CTD programs are held throughout the year.
Tours: Email atlascommunications@colorado.edu to book a student-led tour.

ATLAS Associate Professor Joel Swanson thinks a lot about the weight of words. He has calculated that an average-length English word on newsprint weighs about 5 grams—a digital word has a nearly imperceptible weight.

But it is the philosophical matter at the heart of the idiom that was the central focus for a recent first-year engineering seminar led by Swanson: What is the figurative weight of words as humans increasingly turn to generative artificial intelligence to write?

“AI is getting so good,” said Swanson, who teaches part of the undergraduate Creative Technology and Design (CTD) curriculum, which has degrees granted by the College of Engineering and Applied Science. “I could use ChatGPT to come up with an essay prompt for my students, and then they would respond to that prompt with AI, and then I would grade it, and back and forth. What does that communicate? It's saying words don't matter anymore. So I was really invested in coming up with a project that would show students that words are powerful—that the words they speak and write are meaningful because they wrote them.”

As a tenured professor in the Herbst Program for Engineering, Ethics and Society, Swanson and his colleagues weave humanities and ethics into their engineering courses, with a goal of fostering well-rounded engineers. With that goal always in mind, Swanson asked his students in the First-Year Seminar—a five-week elective for first-year students in Engineering Connections—to write the first sentence of their memoir, “something AI couldn’t do a good job with,” he said. Then students pushed their creativity further by transforming their words into a vibrant, layered image using a Risograph printer.

The task—and the seminar itself—is purposely outside traditional math-and-science-based engineering education, and combined with Swanson’s signature focus on language and technology, students got a firsthand look at life as a CTD student.

Before they wrote their sentences, Swanson’s students—along with more 1,000 other Engineering First-Year Seminar students—spent the first three weeks of the course discussing texts from authors such as Plato, Thomas Merton and Audrey Lorde, zeroing in on university community values like belonging, agency, ownership, inclusivity and service.

“The essays are carefully chosen to challenge these students to think about why they're at the university and what's at stake in terms of higher education,” Swanson said. “The seminar gives students a very high-contact experience to balance out the rest of engineering, which can feel a little anonymous at times.”

Since fall 2023, nearly 70 instructors—with at least one from every major degree program in engineering—have taught 164 sections of the First-Year Seminar, with an average of 19 students per section. Engineering Dean Keith Molenaar has taught a section since the seminar’s inception. Instructors get the last two weeks of the seminar to cultivate the values discussed in the assigned texts through their own areas of expertise and interest. The previous two times Swanson taught the seminar, he used the 1982 dystopian sci-fi film Blade Runner to examine the nature of humanity in the age of AI. But for his most recent iteration of the class, Swanson wanted to do something “a little bit different,” while still focusing on language, creativity and technology.

“We talked about the greatest first sentences in English literature, like ‘Call me Ishmael,’ from Moby Dick,” Swanson said. “It can be confusing, it can be loaded, it can be offensive, but it sets the tone for the rest of the novel.”

Once students had workshopped their sentences, Swanson gave them a crash course on graphic design so they could turn their sentences into Risograph prints, a cross between screen printing and photocopying where one color is printed at a time. Because paper must be fed through the Risograph printer multiple times—once for each color—minor misalignments between layers result in a charming, handmade aesthetic.

“All of their designs impressed me, and some of them brought me to tears,” Swanson said. “I showed them some examples of things I had created and different ways of using the Risograph and then just let them at it. I think students are already so in tune with visual design because they're seeing design of language in social media every day, so they understand what fonts communicate certain vibes.”

At the end of the five weeks, students signed and exchanged prints, then sealed their own design (along with their Blue Book responses to the readings earlier in the seminar) in an envelope with a promise to Swanson to open them upon graduation.

“This is where you are right now—in four or five years, where are you going to be?” Swanson asked them to consider. “I asked them to put it on their calendar to open this package up and think about who they were in that first semester of college.”

For some students, CTD’s focus on project-based learning is a perfect fit, particularly for self-motivated students who want to explore their own ideas. With electives in game design, wearable electronics, big data, virtual reality, neurohacking and more, Swanson’s section of the College of Engineering’s First-Year Seminar can act as a gateway to CTD, where students see and feel the human and artistic side of technology. But no matter their degree focus, Swanson hopes students walk away from the seminar with an appreciation of the role creativity plays in engineering.

“My mantra for this class was: How can I curate the best out of them as humans and as engineers,” Swanson said, “to get them to ask those questions that they're not going to get asked anywhere else in their engineering education.”

ATLAS faculty–led seminar challenges first-year engineering students to explore the power of language in a digital age.

Off

Traditional

White

ATLAS students pair design and engineering to improve access to nature

Michael Kwolek — Tue, 10 Jun 2025 15:46:24 +0000

ATLAS students pair design and engineering to improve access to nature Michael Kwolek Tue, 06/10/2025 - 09:46

Creative Technology & Design master's students developed a system to help birdwatchers with mobility challenges continue to participate in this popular pastime.

Off

Traditional

White

2025 ATLAS student award winners

Michael Kwolek — Wed, 30 Apr 2025 21:35:03 +0000

2025 ATLAS student award winners Michael Kwolek Wed, 04/30/2025 - 15:35

Every year, ATLAS awards recognize distinguished graduating students in our Creative Technology & Design programs who demonstrate remarkable qualities, such as academic excellence, innovative thinking, research efforts, leadership, community mindedness, and outstanding creativity and/or technical performance.

Every award winner this year is unique, but together they all exemplify the ATLAS spirit and all have made their mark on our community through scholastic pursuits, contributions to our community, positive energy, persistence, curiosity, and compassion.

Nefeli Hadjiyiannis - ATLAS Outstanding Student Award

Nefeli Hadjiyiannis graduates Summa Cum Laude from CU’s College of Engineering and Applied Science with a major in Creative Technology and Design (CTD) and a minor in Art Practices. Nefeli has demonstrated an unwavering commitment to the ATLAS community and has become part of the fabric of the CTD program. She has been a Learning Assistant for Text (ATLS 2300), a core class in the CTD major curriculum focused on graphic design and typography. Additionally, she is part of the student staff in the BTU Lab, the ATLAS maker space, supporting students in fabricating and designing their project work. Nefeli has also worked as an undergraduate research assistant with the Utility Research Lab, which combines computational fabrication, materials science, and sustainable design practices. There, Nefeli explored bio-based material formulations to make sustainable textile fibers and helped develop various formulations of gelatin-based dissolvable textile fibers with unique properties and colors. She has also worked on research projects exploring wellbeing and digital device use. She has also been active in CU’s Society of Women Engineers/SWE and participated in several leadership positions to provide support and resources to other engineering students. Nefeli is interested in interactive textiles and innovative sustainable fabric creation. She is also interested in installation work and using computation for fabrication. After graduation, Nefeli hopes to attend graduate school to further her studies in engineering and creative design.

In addition to her ATLAS award, Nefeli received the Research Award from the College of Engineering and Applied Science.

“I am incredibly grateful to the ATLAS community. Genuine enjoyment of learning has been a key factor in my success with multiple previous projects but also in keeping me inspired and motivated. I've made many close friends that have been such a support system in academic and professional settings. The opportunities that CU provides for research have also been incredibly important to me. The research I've completed in the Utility Research Lab has shown me what I want to continue learning.”

Sophie Berry - ATLAS Distinguished Student Award

Sophie Berry graduates from CU’s College of Engineering and Applied Science with a major in Creative Technology and Design (CTD). As an undergraduate, Sophie has worked as a Research Assistant in the Utility Research Lab at ATLAS. As her initial project, she demonstrated remarkable tenacity and out-of-the box thinking to design a custom extrusion set-up to prototype different bio-based materials as candidates for 3D printing. She then continued her work creating a novel material based on gelatin and agar-agar (from seaweed.) While the team are still running tests, preliminary results suggest this material’s strength is on-par with typical thermoplastics—the outcome of this could be a huge breakthrough in sustainable 3D printing materials. Sophie has approached her endeavors with fierce determination and curiosity, rapidly learning and methodically experimenting to understand how materials behave. Sophie has also served as a Learning Assistant in Object (ATLS 3100), a core class in the CTD major on fabrication and modeling. She has demonstrated a unique comprehension of technical systems, their relationship to each other, and how to see creative solutions to problems. For her senior capstone project, Sophie is building ornithopters, a group of tiny flying robots. The project is highly technical and ambitious, requiring an immense amount of investigation and fabrication expertise.

Seneca Howell - ATLAS Distinguished Student Award

Seneca Howell graduates Summa Cum Laude from CU with an engineering major in Creative Technology & Design (CTD) and a minor in Technical Theater. She has served as head Learning Assistant/LA for Image (ATLS 2100), a core course in the CTD major. As an LA, Seneca demonstrated terrific leadership and was dedicated to helping students learning technical skills and applying them to coursework and projects. As an undergraduate research assistant in the ACME Lab at ATLAS, Seneca worked on designing the interactive curriculum for high school students using Cartoonimator, a low-cost, paper-based and tangible kit for computational thinking and keyframe animation. The research project utilizes computer vision algorithms running on a smartphone to detect and process hand-drawn or printed illustrations on paper templates and produces a digital animation. The paper that details the keyframe animation evaluation has been submitted to the ACM International Conference on Tangible, Embedded and Embodied Interaction for review. Additionally, during her time at CU, Seneca has been involved with the Engineering Honors program and the Society for Women Engineers.

Kaya Hamon - ATLAS Distinguished Student Award

Kaya Hamon graduates from CU with an engineering major in Creative Technology & Design (CTD) and a minor in Art Practices. Kaya serves as the head Learning Assistant for Design Foundations (ATLS 1100), a large lecture class taught in the CTD program, where she demonstrates a rich combination of strong technical and mathematical abilities with a passion for design and ceramics. Kaya has been a student employee at ATLAS for 3 years working with communications. She is currently Social Media Manager, where she demonstrates herself to be remarkably intrepid. Kaya has the natural ability and confidence to step into a lab, understand dense research or technical material, and convey it in creative and compelling ways. As a member of the TYPO Lab at ATLAS, Kaya works as an undergraduate research assistant contributing to research and creative projects in typography and technologies of language. She is also an active student member of the BTU makerspace, where she seamlessly meshes herself into all aspects of fabrication in the lab. She is known as a capable mentor on design and UI/UX projects. A natural leader, Kaya is always interested in finding common ground, building connections and finding engaging solutions with partners and fellow students.

Andrew Widner - ATLAS Distinguished Student Award

Andrew Widner graduates from CU with an engineering major in Creative Technology & Design (CTD). He has served as a Learning Assistant in Form (ATLS 3100), part of the core curriculum in the CTD major, teaching topics including CAD, 3D modeling and digital sculpting. He is described as an exemplary, responsible and responsive LA. In conjunction with his CTD studies, Andrew developed a true passion in 3D printing and took the initiative to launch CU3D, a student club he now leads. He has developed a vibrant student community around 3D printing, rallying a diverse group of students around this passion with meetings, workshops, projects and campus outreach. Andrew has independently advocated for the club and represented the group eloquently, even securing corporate sponsorship of 3D resources and equipment. Additionally, Andrew has worked as a student production artist at CU’s Fiske Planetarium where he has demonstrated an outstanding enthusiasm for the immersive media development and 3D animation. He also serves as one of the student leaders of the BTU Lab, the ATLAS makerspace, demonstrating himself to be a true zealot for design and fabrication and leveraging novel perspectives or approaches to creative problem solving. Additionally, Andrew serves as a student ambassador for the CTD program, leading tours and participating in presentations about ATLAS for prospective students. He is articulate and passionate about the program and shares his academic path and student experience at CU as a CTD major.

College of Engineering & Applied Science Graduating Student Awards

Creative Technology and Design students were well represented in this year's College of Engineering & Applied Science Graduating Student Awards.

Community Impact Award & Perseverance Award - Ari Guzzi, BS in Creative Technology & Design

What was the biggest lesson you took away through all the community work you have been involved in during your time as a CU student?

One of the biggest lessons I've learned through my community engagement at CU is the value of applying my education to contribute positively to the world around me. I worked with Blueprint Boulder (a CU student-run organization) to develop websites and apps for nonprofits. That work taught me that education extends far beyond the pursuit of a paycheck. It's a powerful tool for societal betterment and self-growth.

As you reflect on what you’ve persevered through to make it to graduating, how would you say your time as a student has prepared you for the future?

Many times throughout my time as a student, I felt overwhelmed and considered giving up. However, without completing my education, I would never have received the opportunities I have post-graduation. I learned that although sometimes things feel hopeless, setbacks are temporary, and positive outcomes are just over the horizon with persistence.

What is it about ATLAS that you think would be most exciting to prospective students?

I loved my experience at ATLAS because it offers a unique blend of aspects in engineering that most majors wouldn’t get the opportunity to learn. However, the most significant skill I developed at ATLAS was the ability to approach and persevere through challenging problems. We frequently encountered tasks that initially seemed daunting and beyond our immediate capabilities. However, the program encouraged us to be self-reliant and resourceful, teaching us to seek out and apply solutions independently. This ability to persevere and innovate in the face of obstacles is perhaps the most valuable skill ATLAS taught me, significantly influencing every aspect of my life.

Research Award - Lily M. Gabriel, BS in Creative Technology & Design

What did you focus your research on in the Unstable Design Lab?

My focus in research is really on the structural study of fiber, specifically in fabricating textiles through a variety of methods, (like spinning, knitting, and weaving) along with how older methods of textile production might be used in modern e-textiles.

What was the most important thing you learned as a research assistant?

The most important thing I learned as a research assistant might be how to approach research in an organized way, how to actually produce written work from my findings, and how to work with others in a lab setting.

Research Award - Nefeli Hadjiyiannis, BS in Creative Technology & Design

What did you focus your research on in the Utility Research Lab?

I was completing materials design research on fabricating fibers and alternative 3D printing filament from diverse biomaterials for the creation of bio-based, sustainable smart textiles and fabrication methods. As well as researching mechanical properties of various bio-based polysaccharides and proteins in the use of dry-jet wet spinning fiber creation.

What was the most important thing you learned as a research assistant?

In my previous research positions, I was tasked with purifying specific proteins and performing laboratory tasks while following detailed instructions, whereas at the Utility Research Lab I was able to freely explore topics that I found not only intriguing but also motivating. The most important thing I learned in this exploration was how to design my own experiments, fail, and continue to redesign new tests. It takes an immense amount of mental rigor to fail over and over again until a positive result is achieved, especially when those failures are a result of tests you designed.

Three ATLAS students received awards from the College of Engineering and Applied Science for community impact, perseverance, and research, while five earned student awards from ATLAS.

Off

Traditional

White

��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� further solidifies ranking as top 20 graduate engineering program

Michael Kwolek — Wed, 16 Apr 2025 20:03:22 +0000

��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� further solidifies ranking as top 20 graduate engineering program Michael Kwolek Wed, 04/16/2025 - 14:03

��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� ranks number 11 among public university peers for its engineering graduate programs according to U.S. News and World Report Best Graduate Schools rankings for 2025-26.

Off

Traditional

White

ATLAS students learn design skills through the lens of the apocalypse

Michael Kwolek — Fri, 11 Apr 2025 16:53:27 +0000

ATLAS students learn design skills through the lens of the apocalypse Michael Kwolek Fri, 04/11/2025 - 10:53

Michael Kwolek

With the popularity of post-apocalyptic narratives like “Fallout” and “The Last of Us” along with ongoing coverage around global climate turmoil, we are culturally primed to ponder our place in the world—and the skills we could bring to an apocalypse (zombie or otherwise.)

At the ATLAS Institute, we approach challenges as engineers and designers, and one class in particular aims to impart practical skills on students with an eye toward becoming more capable in such times of crisis.

Assistant teaching professor and BTU Lab director Zack Weaver’s new course, Hacking the Apocalypse, teaches undergraduate and graduate students how to apply design thinking to address basic survival needs. This semester’s focus is water: students are tasked to research, design and build novel systems for collecting, storing, treating and distributing water using fabrication techniques and Arduino-based electronics.

Weaver elaborates on the origin of the idea: “I was looking at geopolitics, economics and the way I applied the technologies that we teach in the [Creative Technology and Design] program with a lot of pragmatism and practicality. In my own classes, when I'm assigning prompts, it's often whimsical—it's meant to spark play and creativity.”

Water is a surprisingly complex topic, touching on geology, chemistry and climatology as well as law, ethics and politics—before you even consider the engineering, technology and design challenges associated with harnessing and using it. In fact, the class has attracted students from several different majors.

In developing the course curriculum, Weaver says he “found some really interesting reading on water policy and all kinds of design/build projects for collecting and storing water—things like rain barrels and even dew collection in the middle of the desert, which sounds impossible.“

Watershed moments

Students took a field trip west of campus to the Mountain Research Station, hosted by Jen Morse (MRS climate, water, snow technician), to learn about Boulder’s watershed and the complex monitoring systems they have in place to measure snowpack, humidity, flow rate, water quality and other data.

Elizabeth Saunders, Creative Technology and Design master’s student (social impact track), shares her impressions: “The experience was eye-opening, especially learning about the Niwot Ridge Long-Term Ecological Research Program and the Mountain Climate Program, which has been collecting climate data from the Colorado Front Range since 1952. One of the most fascinating facts I learned was that the air samples collected from the station serve as the global standard for air quality research. This underscores just how pristine and significant this environment is for understanding atmospheric changes on a worldwide scale.”

Students were surprised to discover the facility uses similar sensor technology to what they receive in the physical computing kits they buy for class. Weaver notes, “The Arduino platform makes things inexpensive and friendlier than a lot of commercial electronics,” though at the cost of reduced durability and accuracy.

The increasing accessibility of such technologies undergirds much of the popularity in DIY culture and maker spaces like the BTU Lab, and is indicative of the can-do spirit that defines the ATLAS community.

photo credit: Graham Stewart

Wave of innovation

Students also visited the Innovation Center of St. Vrain Valley Schools (SVVSD). Weaver notes, “The Innovation Center might be one of the best technology STEM programs in a public school in the world.” They offer flight simulator training, a full aeronautics program, entrepreneurship, competitive robotics, and more.

The Innovation Center even works with Boulder County Parks and Recreation to survey watersheds and test water quality and conserve the Northern Leopard Frog in Colorado’s Front Range.

SVVSD biosciences teacher, Jayme Sneider, led ATLAS students in experiencing what water quality testing looks like at scale, demonstrating what they test for and how. The class then focused on replicating that work on the DIY level to develop open source alternatives to expensive commercial technologies.

A cascade of expert insight

The class recently hosted Mark Giordano, Professor and Vice Dean for Undergraduate Affairs in the Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. Giordano previously held multiple roles at the Sri Lanka-based International Water Management Institute, winner of the Stockholm Water Prize—the "Nobel Prize for Water." He shared insights on water, emphasizing the importance of understanding its physical and social aspects to address global challenges.

Giordano detailed how climate change has two main impacts on weather events: intensity and frequency. “We expect that when it rains in the future it will rain even more, and then there will be longer periods between when it rains again.”

Water scarcity is a growing concern that manifests in many ways. Contrary to common assumption, Giordano noted that as much as 90% of our water goes to agriculture, not drinking water or sanitation. We may also believe water scarcity is an issue exclusive to arid places, but we have seen in recent years how inadequately-maintained infrastructure in American cities like Flint, Michigan, and Jackson, Mississippi, can create clean water scarcity even in places with abundant supply.

Water is a political issue, with implications around where it originates, where it flows and who claims ownership over it. Giordano elaborated, “You need clean water to live. You need it every day. It's not particularly expensive in most parts of the world to provide the minimal amount of water it takes to live a healthy life. Investment in basic water has really high returns, and yet over and over and over, we see it not being not being provided.”

A wellspring of water projects

Students are tasked with developing a water-related project over the course of the semester leveraging the tools and techniques they learn in class. They focus on one or more key areas: treatment, distribution, storage, power and collection.

ATLAS undergraduate student Rystan Qualls explains, “I’m working in the distribution group. We’re making a water distribution system that will allow a community in the apocalypse to send water to various sites like a garden or to the showers.”

Saunders details her project: “This semester, I am researching plant resilience and decay in extreme environments, with a particular interest in graywater and saltwater agriculture. My project seeks to answer the question: ‘How quickly can I kill plants so the future Utopian people don’t?’ While the phrasing is unconventional, the research focuses on identifying environmental stressors that lead to rapid plant degradation, with the broader goal of developing strategies for sustainable plant growth in challenging conditions.”

Other student projects range from a storm runoff irrigation system to a 3D-printed moisture evaporator to a smart rain barrel and even a 3D-printed steam engine prototype.

Flow of information

Hacking the Apocalypse - Fall 2025

Hacking the Apocalypse will run again in Fall 2025 with a focus on food.

Students will research, re-create and design novel systems for growing containers, soil mediums, soil and water quality monitoring, and indoor/outdoor urban agriculture systems utilizing fabrication techniques and electronic input/output systems based on the Arduino platform.

ATLS 4519/5519 Hacking the Apocalypse: Food (3 credit hours)

Learn More

Weaver describes his ambition for Hacking the Apocalypse: “Each class is supposed to end in documentation of the projects to a degree that you can hand it off to lay people who don't have to be particularly highly trained to understand it. This is ‘Book One.’”

The goal is to follow this semester with versions of the class focusing on other basic needs—food, clothing and shelter—before returning to water. “Then that water class will inherit everything the first class did, and their expectation will be a different set of design challenges where they have to incrementally improve or iterate on what people did before.”

As for takeaways from this semester, Saunders says, “My research in Hacking the Apocalypse builds upon my background in water policy and sustainability, as well as my ongoing work with FLOW [a legal organization dedicated to protecting the Great Lakes Basin.] My work in this class has given me hands-on experience in water purification, sustainable irrigation and the challenges of resource-limited environments.”

As the semester concludes, Weaver observes, “I'm rediscovering the whole world. I've engaged with it becauseI'm outdoors all the time. But I never understood the planet from a systems perspective, and this is just blowing my mind.”

ATLAS students can now add “apocalypse preparedness” to the engineering, design and creative skills they develop here. Though Weaver does clarify, “It's not an apocalypse class. It's about if you do certain things, you avoid the apocalypse. I'm trying to tell the students it's a utopian class.”

photo credits (unless otherwise noted): Ashley Stafford

At the ATLAS Institute, students tackle real-world challenges through design. Hacking the Apocalypse, a course led by Zack Weaver, teaches undergraduate and graduate students to apply design principles to address a surprising topic: apocalypse preparedness. Using Arduino-based electronics and fabrication techniques, students develop novel water collection and treatment systems.

Off

Traditional

White

Creative Technology and Design master’s students collaborate with City of Denver to enhance civic engagement

Michael Kwolek — Mon, 16 Dec 2024 17:28:39 +0000

Creative Technology and Design master’s students collaborate with City of Denver to enhance civic engagement Michael Kwolek Mon, 12/16/2024 - 10:28

Michael Kwolek

Building civic pride and engagement are essential for cities to thrive. This semester, teams of Creative Technology and Design (CTD) master’s students developed proposals in coordination with the City of Denver aiming to do just that.

The CTD program engages students in pursuing practical solutions to real-world design challenges by blending behavioral insights, technology, branding and marketing, and physical objects. This comprehensive approach can yield more meaningful outcomes than one-off fixes are often able to achieve.

Indeed, while CTD students pursue unique paths focusing on creative industries, social impact or performance technology, they also work on cross-disciplinary team projects that push their boundaries and prepare them to succeed in careers across many industries.

Many methods to design
This year’s cohort had the opportunity to collaborate with the City of Denver to propose solutions for two initiatives as part of Design Methods, a foundational class all CTD students complete.

By nature, good design has no one right approach. Design Methods, taught by Derek Friday and John Breznicky, familiarizes students with many different ways to address design prompts, including the concepts of deliberate observation (e.g. cultural probes, ethnography); “problem finding” and “design thinking”; “wicked problems”; iterative design; and alternative generation and assessment.

The class culminates with month-long final projects in which teams collaborate on proposals to address real-life design needs. This semester, four teams of CTD master’s students worked on projects in partnership with the Denver Mayor’s Office to develop solutions to support two remarkable initiatives.

They delivered final presentations in ATLAS’s B2 Black Box Experimental Studio. In attendance were representatives from the City of Denver, including First Lady Johnston, and Tran Nguyen-Wills, Deputy Outreach Director, along with Josh Wills, Creative Director & Partner at Consume & Create. Each team’s members brought a variety of skills, talents and interests to their groups and collectively they proposed a series of multidisciplinary solutions.

Friday noted, “[The teams] were able to generate solid ideas based on the brief and using the process that we taught them during the semester with the caveat that [the process of] developing your own method for problem solving continues to evolve throughout your entire creative process… They were pros and we were really, really proud.”

Here is some of what the teams presented:

Little Saigon / Saigon Azteca

Team 1 - Abena Gyimah, Julia McKeag, Harsita Rajendren, Shreya Pradeep Sekar, Justin Chan, Lavan Kumar Baskaran, Mythiresh Gajendra Babu
Team 2 - Sylvia Robles, Colin Egge, Jax Whitham, Jacy Ashford, Ayesha Rawal, Noah Reardon
Team 3 - Scott Ehrlich, Eli Skelly, Clayton Hester, Shraddha Shinde, Nick Barcalow, Arjun Ramachandran

Little Saigon Denver is a vibrant cultural enclave known for its rich Vietnamese heritage and community dating back over 40 years, as well as a growing Hispanic community. The City of Denver has identified opportunities to enhance cultural preservation, spark economic development and engage the community in this district.

City designers presented this strategy: “Exploring the intersectionality of the AAPI and Latino/Indigenous cultures, including music, dance, and ceremonies, will result in a compelling brand that amplifies the rich heritage of the communities that call this Cultural District home.”

Three teams proposed comprehensive design solutions incorporating branding (logos, color palettes, typography) and digital solutions (web and mobile integrations) along with physical interventions ranging from modular planters to signage to walkability improvements.

In lieu of an ornamental archway over a busy thoroughfare to mark the neighborhood, one team proposed a pedestrian bridge incorporating cultural design elements, with the aim to improve accessibility and safety. This combination of aesthetic enhancement and cultural relevance combined with practical, human-scale problem-solving powered by technology exemplifies what makes the CTD program special.

Josh Will, who developed the project briefs the students worked from, noted in his feedback to one team, “Given the community’s curb appeal—or lack thereof—it’s a very vibrant district and community, and you have done a great job of taking everything that exists on the inside. When you go into a restaurant or any of the businesses, the community is very welcoming and energetic, uplifting, bright and vibrant. And throughout your entire visualization and also the physical planters and archways—you’ve taken what exists inside and brought it outside.”

Give5 Mile High
Team: Aaron Neyer, Elizabeth Saunders, Pavan Dayal, Shawn Duncan Jr., Stephanie Babb

Give5 Mile High is a citywide volunteer initiative led by First Lady of Denver Courtney Johnston and the Mayor’s Office outreach team. This program empowers Denverites to come together to strengthen the community through collective service.

The City of Denver’s design team identified two key needs to ensure Give5 Mile High success:

A technology solution to support and connect volunteers, organizations and local businesses.
A marketing campaign to raise awareness among key stakeholders.

The student team presented a detailed mock-up of a mobile app designed to simplify connectivity and improve participation in Give5 Mile High. They also built a comprehensive brand and marketing strategy incorporating social media and local influencers to boost program awareness and engagement.

In her feedback to the team, First Lady Johnston said, “This is exactly what we were hoping [the team] would achieve. It made sense to think this should be a very user-friendly app that invites people to participate, and you all did it. This is incredible. I love that there are lots of things we didn’t even think about that you can do.”

Mayor Johnston was able to view the presentation remotely and added, “What I love about it is that it fundamentally understands and accelerates the two major principles of the project. One—how to make it so much easier for folks to sign up—the ease of sign-up is so powerful that the app makes possible. The second is the idea that the service is an act of community building. It is a way in which you serve with other people that binds you together, and this seamlessly connects you to other people.”

Additional project presentations
Aside from the work with the City of Denver, two more student teams presented projects combining engineering, design, data and art. Take a look:

Climate Threads
Team: Sara Runkel, Robyn Marowitz, Caitlin Littlejohn, Kate Rooney

Climate Threads aims to raise awareness about air quality and its impact on public health. Through data visualization and textile design, invisible disparities in air quality become visible and tangible. Explore the data on the project website.

Confluence
Team: Abe Homer, Shalimar Alvarado Cruz Hebbeler, Abhinav Mehrotra, Alexander LaFontaine, Cambria Klinger

Confluence is an interactive, immersive experience that explores the artistry of water. The dynamic fluid simulation can be interacted with by tilting a cairn on all four axes. Laser-cut and built using chipboard, the cairn represents the confluence of both the digital and physical world. The installation was completed with the use of projection, spatial audio, and soft ambient lighting for a peaceful and immersive experience. Learn more on the project website.

Designing through radical creativity and inclusion
Gordon Müller-Seitz, guest researcher and Chair of Strategy, Innovation and Cooperation at the University of Kaiserslautern-Landau (RPTU) in Germany, provided students support and guidance throughout the semester. In addressing attendees, he summed up the ATLAS program by saying, “I really appreciated that you live up to your motto that you strive for radical creativity. But it is not only radical creativity—it is also this radical inclusiveness.”

Learn more about the Creative Technology and Design master’s program

Students proposed design solutions to bolster community interaction and pride in support of the Little Saigon neighborhood and local volunteering initiative, Give5 Mile High.

Off

Traditional

White

Joel Swanson's artwork recognized in Denver and Chicago

Anonymous — Tue, 23 Apr 2019 17:28:48 +0000

Joel Swanson's artwork recognized in Denver and Chicago Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 04/23/2019 - 11:28

A prolific artist who exhibits nationally and internationally, Joel Swanson is having a successful spring. On April 15, his work, "Binary Pronouns," began streaming on 150 Mediastream, a 150-foot long by 22-foot high array of 89 LED blades located in the lobby of the iconic 150 North Riverside building in Chicago. Earlier in the month, he joined a distinguished group of artists in the Octopus Initiative, an innovative art-loaning program linked to Denver's Museum of Contemporary Art that allows members to live with a work of contemporary art in their homes for several months before returning it to the collective.

Swanson explains, "Since the Museum of Contemporary Art isn't a collecting museum and can’t technically buy artwork to support local artists, the Octopus Initiative is a way to support local artists and get their work into the hands of the public. They commission local artists to produce 25 works that then go on loan to the public through a free raffle system."

The brainchild of Adam Lerner, exiting director of the MCA, the Octopus Initiative maintains a rigorous evaluative process, beginning with a nomination from a leading member of the Denver arts community, followed by a review by Denver's Museum of Contemporary Art’s curatorial team who evaluates a nominee's suitability for the program, conducting studio visits and reviewing a wide body of work.

Swanson, who earned a BFA in digital art from ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ��, has exhibited his work extensively, including the Venice Biennale 2017; Republic Plaza in Denver (solo exhibition through June 12); the Broad Museum in Lansing, Michigan; The Power Plant in Toronto; the North Miami Museum of Contemporary Art; and Denver’s Museum of Contemporary Art, where he had a solo exhibition.

Joel Swanson has been on the go this spring, with exhibitions opening in Denver and Chicago, and his joining the Octopus Initiative, an innovative program sponsored by Denver's Museum of Contemporary Art.

Off

Traditional

White

ctd

Inside Sh!tty Hacks: An Anti-Hackathon at ���Ҵ�ý�ƽ������

Off

Coding with creativity: How ATLAS students think beyond algorithms

Off

Building robots, building connections

Off

The weight of words in the age of AI

Off

ATLAS students pair design and engineering to improve access to nature

Off

2025 ATLAS student award winners

College of Engineering & Applied Science Graduating Student Awards

Off

���Ҵ�ý�ƽ������ further solidifies ranking as top 20 graduate engineering program

Off

ATLAS students learn design skills through the lens of the apocalypse

Off

Creative Technology and Design master’s students collaborate with City of Denver to enhance civic engagement

Off

Joel Swanson's artwork recognized in Denver and Chicago

Off

Inside Sh!tty Hacks: An Anti-Hackathon at ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ��

��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� further solidifies ranking as top 20 graduate engineering program