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Three student projects from the University of Waterloo Stratford School of Interaction Design and Business will be showcased at the Lights On Stratford festival, running until January 19, 2025. These projects, part of the GBDA 412 – Special Topics in Media Architecture course, highlight the students' ability to merge technology and the arts.

Under the guidance of David Han, students created interactive installations reflecting on local, non-human activity. The top three projects selected are:

1. A Living Entity: Animates the Avon River, emphasizing its future significance.
2. Nocturnal Visions: Highlights the roles and behaviors of nocturnal animals.
3. Fungi: Beyond the Eye: Explores the hidden world of local fungi roots (mycelium).

The course emphasizes thorough research and iterative feedback, culminating in a final presentation to a panel of community representatives.

In November, over 100 students from UWaterloo, University of Toronto, and Wilfrid Laurier participated in a Financial Fluency design event. The goal was to empower young Canadians with financial tools and education. Students worked through the weekend to develop solutions and pitch them to judges from Sun Life and UWaterloo.

Winning Team: Fund Forward - Visualized financial goals and life milestones. Runner-Up: Mula - Created a community of financial advisors. Honourable Mention: Sprout - Used gamification to engage users with financial goals.

Professors Karen Cochrane and Daniel Harley from Stratford are using Generative AI (GenAI) to create customizable gaming controllers for individuals with complex disabilities. Dr. Cochrane's collaboration with caregivers plays a crucial role in designing these accessible solutions, ensuring they meet the unique needs of users. Their project, awarded by the Google Academic Research Awards (GARA), aims to enhance accessibility and social inclusion through low-cost, user-friendly technology. By leveraging their combined expertise in physical computing and gaming interaction, Dr. Harley and Dr. Cochrane are developing innovative solutions that improve the quality of life for people with disabilities. The project will receive up to $150,000 USD in funding and support from Google, highlighting a future where technology fosters a more inclusive gaming experience.

In their paper, The Great AI Witch Hunt: Reviewers’ Perception and (Mis)Conception of Generative AI in Research Writing, researchers at the Stratford School studied the impact of AI-augmented writing on peer reviews, a formal part of academic research validation. The researchers found that AI-augmented writing improved readability, language diversity, and informativeness; it also often lacked research details and reflective insights from authors in their samples of writing from top-tier Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) conferences.