Students at the EDGE Lab recently showcased their work at the Faculty of Community Services Student Achievement Event. Interns Vivian Chan and Safiyah Nakhuda, featured the work they created during their field placement. Lab tech Rubina Quadri, presented a privacy divider built for a class research project about children’s privacy-seeking behaviour in group settings. Former intern Reilly Dow, created a poster summarizing what she learned at the Adaptive Design Association in New York when she was able to visit as part of her placement at the EDGE Lab.

These cardboard blocks made by Vivian Chan, are constructed to be a low cost alternative to expensive wooden block math sets.

Hard at work.
This assistive device, built by Safiyah Nakhuda, is used to help someone get out of a chair on their own.

EDGE Lab researchers Melanie McBride and Noah Kenneally presented together at the TIFF Nexus: New Media Literacies conference last April 12. Their talk, “Escaping the Creepy Treehouse: Whose games? Whose play?”, examined the role of ‘adultism’ in the conceptualization, design and social relations produced by adult-developed digital and offline playspaces.

Melanie McBride, EDGE Lab Research Assistant and graduate student in the Communications and Culture program at York University, is completing her first Adaptive Design build in our Adaptive Design this week, as part of her studies.

Jason Nolan, Assistant Professor, Early Childhood Studies and Director of the Experiential Design and Gaming Environments (EDGE) Lab, presents student’s custom Adaptive Design creations to His Excellency The Right Honourable David Lloyd Johnston Governor General of Canada and Her Excellency Sharon Johnston on their visit to the EDGE Lab March 14, 2012.

Science Rendezvous is a national event dedicated to featuring scientific research happening in Canada. Ryerson University was showcased at Yonge and Dundas Square and the EDGE Lab was there.

People were able to experience the conductivity of play dough by making music with a theremin, learn some basic cardboard carpentry skills and have a tour of the adaptive devices we’ve created.

Click here to view the pics.

EDGE Lab researcher Melanie McBride was recently invited to give a lecture at University of Toronto’s iSchool as part of their 2012 Colloquium Series. Her talk,“Beyond -fications: The hidden and null curriculum of digital learning and play” was an overview of her lab research and MA coursework on gamification and informal game-based learning under the supervision of Jason Nolan.

EDGE Lab Graduate student Melanie McBride will be presenting at the iSchool Colloquium Series at the University of Toronto on Thursday April 19, 2012. The session takes place at 140 St. George St., Room 728 between 4 – 6 p.m. If you would like to hear Melanie speak about the ‘hidden’ and ‘null’ curriculum of digital gaming and play, click here here for more details.

Here are some pictures of EDGE Lab at Digifest featuring Vlad Cazan, Richard Lachman, Melanie Mcbride and Jason Nolan. 

Tom Igoe from NYU, and core developer of the Arduino open hardware project blogged about his visit to the EDGE Lab this week. He loved vlad’s work, and our adaptive design work. It was great to meet him and we want to go down to NYC for a future visit.

Click on the photo to go to the blog.

Jaime Woo is a writer, game designer, and co-founder of Gamercamp, Toronto’s festival celebrating the art, creativity, and fun in games. Gamercamp is now in its third year and has recently spun off Gamercamp Jr, an experimental project to help guide the next generation of game designers and developers. Jaime’s first game Gargoyles premiered at Toronto’s Recess.TO meet-up and was featured in the magazine Grid. Jaime has spoken about his love of video games on television programs Electric Program and interSPACE and on the CBC radio program Metro Morning. In addition to a passion for video games, Jaime has a deep interest in how technology affects culture and his work has been published in Financial Post, Vancouver Sun, Now Magazine, Torontoist, and Xtra. He has been a speaker on technology and social media at the prestigious SXSW Interactive and NXNE Interactive conferences, and for the Rotman School of Business.

Danny Bakan‘s research is focused on music education, song, social networking and technology. He has an interest in arts-based research and a/r/tographical methodologies. Danny holds an MA in Curriculum, Teaching and Learning from OISE/UT, has taught music and creative arts pedagogy at Ryerson University’s School of Early Childhood Education, been a lecturer at the Royal Conservatory of Music, and has taught music, theatre and creative arts to children and adults in school and non-school settings for over 20 years. Danny is holds a SSHRC Doctoral Fellowship and is working towards his Ph.D. in Curriculum and Pedaogy at the Faculty of Education at the University of British Columba in Vancouver. Danny is also a songwriter, banjoist and performer. His artistic portfolio includes two albums of original songs, performances across North America, and appearances on CBC and NPR. (htp://www.dannybakan.com)