Here are a couple Rotobooth shots from tonight’s Awesome Foundation NYC Party at Babycastles. Babycastles, an independent video game arcade, were the co-hosts of the party and the recipients of the latest $1000 grant from Awesome NYC. Rotobooth, a project by fellow ITP alum Mike Kelberman, is an automated photo booth that uploads pictures directly to Flickr.
Awesome Foundation NYC’s next party will be at Babycastles in Brooklyn (285 Kent Avenue) on June 27th, 8 pm-10 pm-ish. Babycastles, an independent video games arcade, is both the co-host of the party and the recipient of the latest Awesome NYC grant. Free entry, and cash bar. There will be arcade games, fun, and some awesome surprises. See you tonight!
It’s with great pleasure that AF Sydney can announce our May recipient, Scott Brown and his awesome project – Experiential Media & Autistic Spectrum Disorders.
This is a video of some of Scott’s work.
Here’s what appears to be a design of the device Scott will be building.
I am an Honours student at COFA in Sydney, studying Digital Media and focusing on interactive and experiential design. Currently, I am working on a year-long project which will look at how children with autistic spectrum disorders (ASDs) respond to physical interaction with digital devices.
The format of the project will be that of a case study, working with the generous assistance of Aspect (Autism Spectrum Australia). Occupational Therapists from Aspect will shortly source three families with an autistic child who are willing to participate in the study. Once confirmed, unique physically interactive devices (based on each child’s individual sensory issue) will be introduced to the family home, where the parents will observe its impact and pass feedback on to myself. Based on this feedback, further developments will be made over the next six months (for a total of 3×3 devices, ie one device for each child, re-developed three times).
A grant such as this one would be used entirely for purchasing components like the Arduino open source microcontroller, relevant sensors, feedback elements (lights, motors, audio controllers etc), as well as construction of device housing.
We were really excited to have received Scott’s submission, and are really looking forward to seeing this awesome project come further into fruition. Some of the specific aspects of Scott’s idea that we liked were:
1) It was awesome
The idea of creating a toy for children (and families) with an ASD to help them further their learning and understanding of the world was brilliant.
2) It was simple
Scott’s not trying to change the world, today. He just wants to build 9 toys (3 toys, for three families) for people that will use them for fun and understanding. He’s already spoken to and working with Aspect, and the project is really doable.
3) Our $1000 will count
Scott wasn’t asking for $1000 to ‘begin’ his project. He needed it to ‘complete’ the project in it’s totality. A trend that’s really become apparent in our meetings is that we love seeing simple, awesome projects that we can help make happen with only $1000.
Brilliant Scott – thanks for applying and thanks fr being awesome!
Extra! Extra! The Institute on Higher Awesome Studies is tickled pink to announce that we’ve been awarded a Knight News Challenge grant to start the first ever Awesome Foundation around journalism and news. We’d like you to meet Awesome News Taskforce, a regionally-rooted and topic-based Awesome Foundation that will be nurturing small, awesome innovations in community news in the great city of Detroit.
We’re now starting the process of looking for trustees—the 10-15 brilliant people at the core of the News Taskforce who will make monthly decisions on what they think is best for their community. Ideal trustees are innovative, enthusiastic, hard-working, and widely-connected people. In assembling this taskforce, IHAS seeks a balance of diverse professional backgrounds and sectors, genders, races, and ages that reflects the city it intends to serve. If you have suggestions, please let us know!
When the Awesome LA Chapter sat down to consider who to give the next grant to we were, per usual, faced with a very difficult decision. After much debate and soul-searching for what The Awesome Foundation truly stands for, we picked a project that we felt truly embodied our mission – to find and sponsor unique, grassroots, homegrown ideas for making the world a more fun, happy, and dare we say, awesome place to be in.
The project we ultimately chose to support is one that developed over a coffee table discussion between Jeffrey Waldman and his friends, debating what vehicle would elicit a pure sense of joy. Photos from his journey across Los Angeles to hang swings can be found here: http://on.fb.me/ipXGtN.
Better yet – here is an awesome video that documents the team’s work hanging swings throughout Los Angeles.
Now, Jeff is now taking his beautiful idea to a whole new level:
“The easy answers to finding pure joy were from our childhood and the most common was swings. From there it was a simple endeavor but we had no idea how well it would be received or the exponential impact it would have on people’s lives and their interactions. We accidentally stumbled onto something wonderful and much greater in its return than what was to be expected on paper. Every time I see a child beg their parents to be pushed on one of my swings, I become all the more committed to the idea that this project is something I’ll never give up until it becomes a movement on a global scale. This last time was no different, and I’m entrenched in the effort to make my dream a reality… Our Next Step: Swings: Bolivia
We have just launched a new Kickstarter campaign [LINK:swingsetting.org ] to hang swings throughout Bolivia. In case you’re curious as to why we chose Bolivia– there are a hundred states and cities that we’d love to bring joy to, but Bolivia in particular has some very relevant statistics:
-Bolivia has the second highest poverty levels in South America.
-49% of the population is under 20.
-1 in 4 Bolivians are between the ages of 10 and 19.
-40% of their Army is under the age of 18.
-The age of consent is arbitrarily defined as “puberty.”
-In every 1000 teenage girls, 88 are pregnant.
Bolivia is a country largely populated by children, few of whom are able to act like it. If ever there was a place in need of a return to innocence and a reminder of the pure and simple joys in life, this is it.
We’ve hung swings in The Marshall Islands, Panama, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. We’ve also inspired people in a dozen other cities to do the same. But this next step will be something bigger, something more than a weekend, where we’ll spend a month in Bolivia living among the communities, learning first-hand the emotional state of a country and its people. We’ll work with people on the ground to really dig deep, going to off-the-beaten-path towns and truly living local life. This is the project that will set the tone and goals of a global scale effort, and go far beyond what I’ve previously been doing. We’re not just going to throw some rope over a tree– we’ll be sowing the idea of creating impromptu joy and reminding Bolivians what it feels like to experience pure and innocent happiness.”
We are so honored to have helped fund this idea and are very excited to see the fruits of Jeff’s labor as he takes his vehicle for joy and spreads it across the world.
