UARTS FEAST
faculty engineering/arts student teams
A genre-focused, web-first game engine with the accessibility of MIT Scratch and the professionalism / commercial flexibility of RPG Maker. This project will provide beginning game designers with a fast and effective means to prototype their RPG, RTS, and Tower Defense game ideas, while providing U-M students with “in-the-field” gamedev and webdev experience.

“22/26 Midwest” is a net-zero building concept for the US Midwest climate condition. The technology has the goal to reduce the green-house gas emission for building operation, to improve the comfort of the occupants and to reduce the construction cost. The UARTS Student Team will work on prototypes, programming and control technologies to develop the “22/26 Midwest” project.

The goal of this project is to explore methods of incorporating visual communication of effort, gesture, and movement into telematic performance without video transmission. Practical experiments with different sensing techniques, including infrared motion capture, inertial measurement, electromyography, and force sensing will be coupled with novel digitally fabricated mechatronic displays.

No copies are known to exist of 1928 lost film THE BIG CITY, only still photographs, a cutting continuity, and a detailed scenario of the film. Using Unreal Engine, detailed 3D model renderings, and live performance, students will take users back in time into the fictional Harlem Black Bottom cabaret and clubs shown in the film.

Designers of digital musical instruments have worked to make them accessible to people with cognitive or motor disabilities. The TAMIE project advances this by allowing users to train their own instruments, using machine learning to map their movements to musical output, emphasizing consistent gesture recognition for effective interaction.

This project proposes a new class of eye imaging device for children featuring an embodied robot character. We seek to transform the sterile, cold, and clinical pediatric eye imaging process into an engaging activity that instead invites children into an interactive partnership. This robotic eye imaging character may enable routine eye examination in young patient populations that will substantially improve the standard of care in pediatric ophthalmology.

This team integrates LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) and photogrammetry, 3D point-cloud data captured from artifacts, buildings, urban environments, and landscapes that are animated through the gaming platform and advanced 3D creation tool, Unreal Engine, to develop empathic, inclusive spatial narratives through immersive interfaces.