Students now have multiple choices for Design Studio
We have made a few expansions to the Design Studio (DS) program. In addition to traditional industry-sponsored projects, students can also choose to participate in Startup Studio, Research Studio, or even a sponsored nonprofit project to complete their capstone requirements. This year’s DS portfolio includes three student led startups, four research projects, one nonprofit project, and 16 industry sponsored projects.
So how does Startup Studio work? Students pitch their ideas to a panel of entrepreneurs and business leaders in the spring. Thanks to funding from generous individuals, three startups were selected to become projects. After team formation, the startup teams attended additional workshops that focused on the unique needs of a startup, such as accounting, stakeholder engagement, legal advice and more. Our vision for Startup Studio is, over the next several years, to create a separate course from Design Studio that will allow us to tailor the content and support even more towards the unique needs of startups. In the meantime, the spirit of entrepreneurship inspires all students to lean into ground-breaking innovative solutions. This year’s startups included:- Cattle Kettle, smart solutions for livestock ranchers, a tech-driven approach to optimize water management and enhance cattle health.
- Dyslexico, a solution to make writing more accessible for people with dyslexia by providing AI-powered spelling and grammar tools tailored to the dyslexic mind.
- INFR, a web app that allows users to upload a directory of images and automatically rename, sort, and tag the images, based on a user defined pattern and AI-identified elements of the image.
We have been allowing students to replace one year of DS with a year-long research project with a faculty member. For the second year, the results of student research will be included in Showcase. This year, four of our students completed their capstone requirements by using their unique multidisciplinary skills to conduct research projects:
- Mathematical Models for Zebra Mussels, Tan Phan, focuses on developing models to track and control the spread of zebra mussels, an invasive species.
- Environmental Justice, Samuel DeZube, examines the impacts of electric vehicle charger placement in disadvantaged communities.
- Identifying drone flying proficiency using eye gaze movements, Angeline Luther, seeks to extend existing research done at the NIMBUS lab on small, unmanned aerial vehicle (sUAV) flying proficiency to understand the relationship between drone flying expertise and eye tracking movements.
- Data and Disparities: Tracing Nebraska's Earliest Female Lawyers (1868-1950), Clare Kramper, aims to understand the circumstances that made it possible for women to practice law in Nebraska despite the lack of opportunity.
We want your expertise to improve our nonprofit projects!
Giving back to our communities is an important and meaningful way for students to use their talents to impact the future in a positive way. Thanks to the Spreetail Foundation, students have had the option to work on a nonprofit project for the past three years: Bridges to Hope, Center for People and this year MICAH House, which provides shelter and support for families and women.
Small-to-mid sized nonprofits rarely have the expertise to create and manage a technology solution like what Design Studio students can provide. Students have found the projects incredibly rewarding to work on as they see first-hand how much impact their work truly provides.
While valuable, nonprofit projects bring their own sets of challenges. With our current model, we are working through what happens when the project wraps up and the delivered solution is solely in the hands of the nonprofit. Who can make improvements or maintain the solution? As we go forward, we are looking at how Design Studio can provide proper technical oversight with the solution development during the school year as well.
We know the desire to continue giving back to the community continues beyond graduation and we are looking for alumni to fill that gap by sharing their time and talents. Right now, we are seeking volunteers to help us discern ways to better serve nonprofit organizations. If you are interested in helping, or just learning more about our nonprofit project model, please send an email to designstudio@unl.edu.
Join us for Design Studio Showcase, May 3 2024!
All alumni are invited to our annual showcase on Friday, May 3 2024, from 1 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. at the Nebraska Innovation Campus Conference Center. For more information and to RSVP, go to our Showcase page.