Lab & Pedagogy — Immersion Lab

Faculty Director, ArtCenter College of Design, Pasadena, CA, 2016 - Ongoing

Started the Immersion Lab 8 years ago at ArtCenter as a space that provides equal access to emerging technologies for art, design, and research. 

Conduct design research on emerging technology through hands-on prototyping in support of cross-disciplinary course programming, IxD curriculum, and design education materials (lectures, workshops, tutorials).

Developed Technology-Centered Design Research methodology as a design research approach and communication strategy for students. It is a primary research method of understanding emerging technologies and mediums through investigative making to inform UX and 3D interaction design opportunities.  

Curate hardware and software library for investigative study - AR/VR, computer vision, artificial intelligence, machine learning, 3D engines, motion capture, spatial computing, and scanning. 
     
Collaborate across ArtCenter departments and with visiting Industry sponsors to create relevant courses that communicate to a diversity of students, learning types, and skill levels.

Sponsors/Partners — Patagonia, Meta Reality Labs, Unity, Leap Motion, Google Daydream, Gravity Sketch, HTC Vive, National Research Group, Oculus, Size Stream, and Snap Inc Research.

Immersion Lab Featured in Core77 — “ArtCenter's Jenny Rodenhouse on Integrating VR/AR Technologies into Design School Curriculum”. 

Tracking workshop, Virtual Furniture, Sam Giambalvo
Mixed reality lighting assignment, work by Feather Xu
3D scanning and rigging workshop in Unity, flowers dancing by Hans Jurisch
Motion capture
Mixed Reality furniture, turning a chair into a button assignment
Custom AR image trigger workshop, Applique project by Tianlu Tang & Christopher Taylor, Sponsored studio with Google Daydream team
Intro to Unity tutorial and workshop  
Studios and topics covered in lab
Immersion Lab talk, mixing and matching tech
Shooting student final documentation
Mixed reality safety, Sensewear by Isabel Li, Lucas Thin, Mingshan Wang, & Duoning Zheng
 
Intro to Unity non playerable characters, work by Isabel Li, Lucas Thin, Mingshan Wang, & Duoning Zheng
Digital Casting exhibition at ArtCenter DTLA featuring student work of emerging 3D scanning techniques
Human Factors in motion capture, using Kinect Azure
Students prototyping in lab
Learning from computer vision model, COCO
Everything as Input, using headset as camera to turn anything into an interactive input
Hosted livestream, a car that tours around student projects
Mixed reality tactility workshop  
18 — Raspberry Pi integration with Unity
Students working in lab
Virtual Campus course with CalTech in Second Life
Machined Influencers course poster
Highway as gallery space in Second Life
ARTV video exhibition graphics for hosted live stream of student work from Snap Research Creative Challenge studio  
Student prototyping frog tongue in Unity
Workshop with video grame actors

HOUSE — Jenny Rodenhouse

designer — educator