Hi everyone!
So it is finally midterm season and everything is starting to fall into place for the semester here at SC. Most, if not all, organizations on campus are in full swing so I wanted to talk about my favorite organization within Viterbi. There are a ton of different organizations in Viterbi ranging from professional societies to different design teams. Currently I am involved in organizations like 3D4E (the 3D printing club here on campus), Engineers Without Borders, and the Associated Students of Biomedical Engineering (ASBME) where just last week I got to hear Alex speak on a student panel about his amazing summer with the Viterbi study abroad program. All of these organizations are great, however my current favorite is actually a new edition to my extracurriculars this year, Corpus Callosum.
Corpus Callosum is a Spark SC member organization that focuses on combining art and engineering.
There are a bunch of different project groups within Corpus Callosum that incorporate design, art, and technology to create really cool pieces. Some of the projects last year included hacking an XBOX kinect to register movements in relation to musical tones, a piece that represented the manifestation of social media, and an EEG brain wave data engraved onto wooden blocks (this one was featured at Angel City Brewery in the Arts District). The two main events throughout the semester are a concept show where the project teams present their project prototype, and a final show where the finished projects are displayed in an art gallery-esque setting.
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- The social media project from Spring 2015’s final show
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- The final gallery last semester!
The projects this year are super awesome and range from placing LEDs on clothing and programming the LEDs to light up based on the wearer’s vitals (breathing, pulse, temperature, etc.), to a Dr. Seuss-themed bike that will use the air as the bike moves to play some type of wind instrument.
It is really cool to see different disciplines combine to create interesting content. Usually STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) is stressed in academia, but coming from an intense musical background growing up, I believe it is important to include art and design into these fields of study changing the conventional STEM to STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art/design, and math). I found this awesome quote by engineer Steven Roberts that beautifully demonstrates this bridge, “Art without engineering is dreaming, engineering without art is calculating.” Corpus Callosum at USC is just the organization to cross this barrier.
Have a great week everyone and fight on!
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