October 14, 2024
In March 2024, students went to Ecuador for their Digital Narrative and Interactive Design (DNID) capstone project with Dr. Dmitriy Babichenko, clinical associate professor in the Department of Informatics and Networked Systems. Students were divided into five teams each with a distinct focus and function in order to gather information on an isolated indigenous Waorani tribe to preserve their culture. Two SCI students, Emily Hann (SCI '23) and Sydney Rodriguez (SCI '25), share their experience on the trip and beyond.
“Traveling to Ecuador to find a way to bring the Waorani people’s history to life using technology is exactly what DNID is all about,” says Rodriguez. “We were able to apply our skills in computer programming, virtual reality, graphic design interfaces, problem solving, and narrative study to this project to create a virtual adaptation of important Waorani experiences and information that will act as a way to preserve their culture for years to come.”
The DNID program is a nexus for technology, communities, and creativity, and through capstone projects like Dr. Babichenko’s, Pitt students can directly see the impact their work has on the world around them.
“My goal with my DNID major is to develop immersive educational experiences that encourage participants to actively engage with diverse cultures through the art of narrative storytelling and environmental immersion,” says Hann. “By comprehending both the power of information and good design, DNID students demonstrate that art and technology are not mutually exclusive as they operate within the liminal space where both fields coexist and inform one another. It is here where the future of media technologies resides.”
Both Rodriguez and Hann were part of the UX/UI team, where they created a website for the project, a VR prototype, and a database cataloguing Kichwa narratives and local ecological data. “As our site had to cater to the needs of diverse users, including researchers, social scientists, and indigenous community members, we ensured that the database search results were easily accessible and usable by everyone,” explained Hann.
Rodriguez extrapolated on the project’s accessibility, saying that it was “very important for this project to be physically presented and to give individuals, whether researchers, scientists, native groups, or anyone else, access to information to learn more about various cultures and their experiences.”
On this trip, students had a chance to not only utilize their existing skills but develop new ones. Rodriguez recounted learning how to use 3D scanning to take pictures of real objects and recreate them in virtual spaces. “It was very rewarding to see our hard work come together into a physical product,” she said. By collaborating with various teams, the DNID students had the opportunity to exhibit the cross-functional nature of their program and try new things to expand their skillset.
Hann and Rodriguez are looking forward to using their new and honed skills in both their professional and academic careers.
Rodriguez has already put into practice what she learned at PNC bank as an intern for the digital content design team in Retail Product Management & Development. “This position has utilized the same skills I used for wireframing user experiences in Figma to wireframe online experiences for PNC customers,” she says. “I will definitely continue to use this as a conversational point and as a unique experience for future job positions because it was very relevant to my interests in UI/UX design.”
As the Fall 2024 term has just begun, Rodriguez is an undergraduate teaching assistant for the DNID class under Dr. Babichenko and Christopher Maverick, a teaching assistant professor in the English Department. “This will involve a lot of communication with the teachers and students, collaboration with the other UTA and teachers, and design thinking for certain projects in the class, which was important in the capstone,” she says.