RIT 2129

Amrit Wanasundera – AR Developer

Blessing Okogeri – Concept Artist

Geoff Gracia – Chronicler and Historian

The goal of this mobile AR project is to design a new. RIT art exhibit, showcasing what life would be like. 210 years after the Mechanics Institute and the Rochester Athenaeum were combined to create RIT.  Because the original building still stands, I wanted to encapsulate a new way to go to university, where the central building would be much smaller than the current sprawling campus. Still, I would serve as a big server hub, a place where subscribers worldwide could pay to learn from wherever they are. All the information comes from the server located at the original building.  Like the current rate, the building is a bit forward-thinking, encapsulating the quote brick city. It is known for being. We also wanted to ensure that we implemented some new changes, such as a keyboard on the side that lit up, which would act as different connection points and university repositories that people could connect to remotely. And we wanted to give a cyberpunk feel to it without straying too much from the original building. We wanted to usher in a new era of new and old that everyone could be a part of.

Much of what we learn about AR is designed to create a new way of visualizing the world while staying true to what art means. A way of expression. One of the best pieces we were all inspired by was a walkthrough of Edinburgh, a way that someone’s simple film of them walking is translated into a whole new experience. And because we wanted to keep it original to RIT and encapsulate the history, we wanted to combine these elements to create a new kind of AR Project, one that someone could experience as if they were seeing something new, rather than just honoring something old (which still has a valid place). This also acts as a way to create a new kind of interaction with history that people usually don’t covet. With all this project, I didn’t know that RIT was over 200 years old and is the product of two other institutions coming together. The actual name, Rochester Institute of Technology, did not exist until 1944. I was also unaware that the original building where the first students came to partake is still used as a memorial building called the Bevier Memorial Center.  With all this in mind, we had a perfect project on our hands.