Cogswell College, a historic, 600-student educational institution offering a unique curriculum fusing Digital Art, Engineering and Entrepreneurship, is very pleased to announce that TWO original apps designed by students of the school have been named as Finalists within Google's 2015 "Project Tango Developer" Contest. These two projects, which are now competing for Grand Prizes against professional developers and companies, were selected among only 48 finalists chosen from hundreds of submitted entries.
An app called "Room Modes Calculator," created by Cogswell College student Caleb Madsen, with coding assistance by fellow Cogswell student Dylan Hart, under the submission entry name "Audio Architects," has been named as a Finalist in the Google contest, under the Category: UTILITY.
And an app called "We Are Cubed," created by Cogswell College students Christian Sasso and Steven Ulrich, under the submission entry name WeR VR, has been named as a Finalist in the Google contest under the Category: ENTERTAINMENT.
Regarding "Room Modes Calculator," Timothy W. Duncan, a Cogswell College Professor and Director of the school's Digital Audio Technology department, said, "This is an exceptional accomplishment for a student who is not an engineer, but rather a savvy audio student with a passionate vision. This was a project Caleb Madsen began during guest teacher Chuck Knowledge's Interactive Audio class last spring. Caleb's finalist nomination deserves a parade and banners!"
Adds Chuck Knowledge, Front of House Engineer for Nero/Dizzie Rascal, & Chris McCarron (Pigeon Detectives, Maximo Park, The View,) said, "Caleb and Dylan have done incredible work on their 'Room Modes Calculator' app. They even submitted their prototype entry into the Google contest in advance of the deadline!"
Regarding the finalist placement for "We Are Cubed," John Duhring, Director, Strategic Alliances and Alumni Relations with Cogswell College, said, "The success of Christian Sasso and Steve Ulrich's 'WeR3' original app points to a critical note of differentiation about our school's approach. Most colleges request that students graduate first before they are allowed to create experiments. Our students have the opportunity to paw through brand new technologies and generate their own experiences while they are still undergrads. The fact that this remarkable student project was presented during SIGGRAPH 2015, and has just been named a finalist in the Google Tango contest, is proof positive that the success of our approach clearly speaks for itself."
About THE "ROOM MODES CALCULATOR" APP
Room Modes are a collection of resonances that result in standing waves when a room is "excited" with the introduction of new audio. Standing waves are made up of frequencies that, when added up, create modes, or anti-modes. The "Room Modes Calculator app presents the user with augmented reality visualizations – it is a tool that can be utilized by visually minded people when planning how to create and build a proper listening or recording environment. To learn more about the "Room Modes Calculator" app, please see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzQzXUZtwb8
About THE "WE ARE CUBED" APP
Originally prototyped during the 2015 Global Game Jam by Cogswell students Sasso and Ulrich, "We Are Cubed" (WeR3) is the next evolution of 3D puzzle game. Sasso and Ulrich demonstrated WeR3 during SIGGRAPH 2015's "Appy Hour." In WeR3, each level presents players with a colored canvas they must recreate using their own colored avatar. Players must develop a strategy for moving their six-sided avatar across the landscape, as some faces of the avatar "paint" different colors. Developed in the Unity Game Engine using Google Cardboard technology, the game can be enjoyed as a standalone smartphone experience using touch controls or, much more interestingly, as a completely hands-free Virtual Reality experience. For more information about WeR3, please visit http://myvirtualrealitygames.com
About THE GOOGLE "PROJECT TANGO DEVELOPER" CONTEST
Google's Project Tango Developer Contest is a skill contest where developers may create and submit an original Android application to the Google Play store that uses the Project Tango Tablet Development Kit. The apps that each qualified entrant or entrant team develops and submits are evaluated by judges, who in accordance with the contest's official rules will determine winners of prizes. Grand Prize winners in each of three categories, UTILITY, AR OR VR, and ENTERTAINMENT, will be announced on October 26, 2015. For more information, please see: https://www.google.com/atap/project-tango/contest/
About COGSWELL COLLEGE
Designed as a "fiercely collaborative, living laboratory," Cogswell College is located in the heart of the legendary Silicon Valley in Sunnyvale, California. The school is a WASC accredited, four-year institution of higher education with a specialized curriculum that fuses digital arts, audio technology, game design, engineering and entrepreneurship. In 2015, Cogswell was cited by Animation Career Review as "One of the Top 50 Private Game Design Schools and Colleges in the U.S."
Numerous alumni of Cogswell College have secured prominent positions within the entertainment, videogame, technology, computer, animation, and motion graphics industries throughout California and beyond. Several of these alumni have established careers with such high profile companies as Activision, DreamWorks Animation, Disney, Electronic Arts, Pixar, and Microsoft Game Studio. Many other alumni have launched their own creative ventures.
Recent Cogswell alumni were members of the Academy Award-winning production teams which worked on the blockbuster films "Frozen" and "Life of Pi." Some of the other well-known consumer projects to which Cogswell alumni have contributed include the feature films "Big Hero 6" and "The Avengers," and the popular videogames "Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare," "Halo 4" and "Battlefield Hardline."
Cogswell College is now located at 191 Baypointe Parkway, San Jose, California, 95134. For more information, please call 1-800-264-7955 or visit http://www.cogswell.edu
