new works incubator
Role: Program Director
​
​
The Immersive Media Design (IMD) New Works Incubator is a nine-week summer development program designed to support the creation of immersive media projects by students from across the University of Maryland (UMD) campus.
The Incubator enables individual student creators and teams to explore new areas of immersive media and to create works based on their own interests and initiative.
​
The New Works Incubator and NextNOW Fest are sponsored by the University of Maryland's Arts for All initiative, which leverages the combined power of the arts, technology and social justice to address the grand challenges of our time.​
Launched in 2021 the New Works Incubator has supported the development of over 50 student led projects spanning augmented and virtual reality, interactive projection design, physical computing, spatial audio, interactive sculpture, and more.
​
​
The program's structure balances self-directed learning with specialized support and accountability.
​
Workshops: Two weeks of workshops cover a range of immersive media topics including design thinking and technical training on key software.
​
Design: Students develop and refine project ideas through peer collaboration and mentor feedback. Projects may be brand new or based on pre-existing projects started in classes or other programs.
​
Prototype: Students build and share a prototype of their project for feedback from mentors and peers. Prototypes can test a specific aspect of a project like an animation sequence or interaction mechanic or they might test larger aspects of a project like the narrative journey.
​
Demo Day: The incubator culminates with a Demo Day. Invited guests and staff from the Clarice Performing Arts Center join students and mentors to experience the projects created over the course of the incubator.
​
NextNOW Fest: Completed incubator projects are featured in NextNOW Fest, a campus-wide arts and technology festival.
While students work towards a finished product, the focus of the New Works Incubator is on process.
​
Students gain more than just novel projects for their portfolios. Through project-based learning, students gain skills and experience in collaboration, problem solving, project management, user experience and experience design, storytelling, coding, 3D modeling, 3D printing, motion capture, and animation.
STUDENT TESTIMONIALS:​
​
“The flexibility offered by the program was really nice (being able to go in-person, over Zoom, or watch recordings. The variety of mediums we were provided to create our pieces was also great, and allowed us to delve as much into digital and/or practical effects as we felt necessary for our art).”
​
“There was a lot of mutual trust between the mentors and mentees. When working with equipment, I never felt intimidated, overwhelmed, or unsafe. The student participants were also very amiable. It was fun sharing ideas and getting to see other people's projects progress.”
​
*All photos by Lisa Helflert