On Wednesday, October 5th the Games Institute opened its doors to the public for its annual Open House. Guests were able to explore the entire 9000-square-foot GI space, including lab spaces, to discover the interactive and immersive technologies research conducted in the GI’s collaborative interdisciplinary environment.
All areas of the GI were occupied by over 35 faculty and graduate student GI members and their projects, including many game and equipment demonstrations. Additionally, 16 other researchers who could not present in person provided slides summarizing their projects that were displayed in the collaboration space. Researchers also provided selected journal articles which were printed and available to guests for journal articles “shopping” to take home.
One of the many guests at the Open House was University of Waterloo President, Dr. Vivek Goel and Associate Vice-President Research and International, Dr. Bernard P. Dunker, who received a private tour of the institute featuring:
- GI publications First Person Scholar (presented by EIC Sabrina Sgandurra) and the Palgrave Games in Context book series (presented by Dr. Emma Vossen)
- The Anti-racism, Decolonization, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Committee (presented by Dr. Gerald Voorhees)
- Demonstrations in the Haptics Experience Lab (presented by Ana Lucia Diaz de Leon Derby, Bibhushan Raj Joshi, and Marco Moran-Ledesma)
- A video presentation by Adebusola Adekoya, Isabella Rose Chawrun, and Dr. Hector Perez about their work with Indigenous First Responders
- A demonstration of gaming technology used in humanities dissertation research in the Living Room Lab (presented by Nicholas Hobin)
- VR Demos of Seas the Day (presented by Dr. John Muñoz and Samira Mehrabi)
- A Demonstration of our large multi-touch display featuring Illuminate a climate change simulation game in the Presentation Room (presented by Dr. Emma Vossen)
- A demonstration of the Digital Oral Histories of Reconciliation (DOHR) VR project (presented by Bibhushan Raj Joshi and Dr. Kristina Llewellyn)
- A presentation the project “The World After Covid” (presented by Dr. Igor Grossman)
- A demonstration of the HCI Games and Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology Knowledge Translation Vaccine Game (presented by Ekaterina Durmanova)
- An overview of the current critical feminist design work being done by Feminist Think Tank and qCollaborative (presented by Drs. Brianna Wiens and Shana MacDonald).
During the Open House, many more GI members presented their work to visitors from Waterloo and beyond. Visitors were also given the opportunity to ask questions on how the GI could support their research.
Special thanks go out to all the members who presented their work, helped with the setup and cleanup and acted as guides to visitors. Special thanks to Joseph Tu for volunteering to photograph the event and capturing so many great moments