The atrium in Duffield Hall buzzed with ideas Wednesday afternoon as students from across the University presented a total of 36 projects and tech designs at the 20th annual Bits On Our Minds showcase.
Examples of the inventive projects on display included Deaf Dance, an app and device designed to help deaf people learn how to dance and Robomix, a robot mixologist that was supposed to pour mixed drinks more efficiently and precisely.
Matt Jastremski grad, one of the student attendees, said that he was intrigued by the practical applications of a pair of calendar management apps that encouraged productivity and gave notifications for events happening around campus.
“They both seem really interesting because they have practical applications that I would personally use, and things that I have wanted out of that type of software, so it’s cool to see it being developed here on campus,” he said.
The showcase also enabled the audience to interact with presenters. For example, the Cornell Mars Rover team had its robot pick up a screwdriver and place it in a child’s hand.
In addition to the showcase, a program was held for middle school kids in coordination with the event that allowed the children to visit research labs, explained Leslie Morris, director of communications for Cornell computing and information science.
“We probably had about 50 kids come, and we put on a whole program for them and they came to some of the engineering labs and got to see what’s going on,” Morris said.
Prior to the event, BOOM sent the resumes of all the participants to the event’s sponsors. As an added incentive for the students, these various sponsors attended to scout for talent and offered cash prizes to teams they found particularly innovative.
“It’s interesting to get to talk to those companies about what they’re doing on the tech side and have a more intimate one-on-one with them as opposed to what you would see on their website, or sending your resume out anonymously,” said Lola Legrand grad, who was presenting her team’s project, Robomix.
However, many of the participants and sponsors looked beyond recruitment and viewed the event as an opportunity to engage with and learn from each other.
Kunjithapatham Muthuvelayutham M.B.A. ’10, a representative of J.P. Morgan, spoke highly of the potential he saw at BOOM.
“We get to see good solutions here where people propose a lot of these designs and architectures,” he said. “We are looking for innovative students and innovative people, and this is the place to be, the place to see those innovative students.”
Below is the list of winners:
Sponsor Awards:
Air Liquide: Health Tracking App
Amazon: Ithaca Transit App
A16z: Uplift
Bank of America: Campus Tour app
Capital One: QUACC
Disney: Spyder Bot
EY: Ithaca Transit App
Goldman Sachs: In Domain
J.P. Morgan: Cicero DB
Schlumberger: RoboMixer
Workday: Banana Maven
Statistics Award: Wikisite
Faculty Choice Award: Brella: Personal Weather
Legacy Team Award: Autonomous Bicycle