In the Sandbox

This year’s Founders Day celebrations included “Founder's Sandbox,” a day-long event which took place on March 23 in Prov Wash, and engaged students with lively panel discussions, a student initiative showcase and a “makeathon” competition.

The day “originated 100 percent” from the students, says Mighty Wanitprapha 24 GD, co-president of E’Ship, a RISD-student-led creative entrepreneurship organization. “We wanted to make this a very large collaborative project centered on the theme of social innovation—how we can create socially just projects or startups or ventures that can impact the local and global community.” Wanitprapha planned Founder's Sandbox with Manna Patiparnprechavut 25 GD, Sage Lou 24 ID and Nicole Lee 24 GD in collaboration with RISD’s Alumni Office.

Two student-moderated panel discussions kicked off the day, the first, moderated by Sage Lou, who is co-president of RISD IDSA, an official student chapter of the Industrial Design Society of America that focuses on connecting students to the professional world. Ashley Axios 08 GD, creative director for the Obama White House and co-owner of design studio Coforma, shared the stage with Max Frieder 12 PT, founder of Artolution, an organization that empowers local artists in conflict-affected areas. Emma Altman 13 AP co-led a roundtable discussion with Frieder about Artolution and life after RISD. A second panel—featuring Ryan Cunningham 02 FAV and David Lee 00 GD—focused on creative collaboration.

Throughout the day attendees browsed a showcase of socially related student projects organized in collaboration with XR Hub, a student organization interested in MR, VR and AR technology. Patiparnprechavut described one project as a “comprehensive but also emotional virtual journey through all the galleries of RISD Museum.”

The Prov Wash basement was a hub of activity, too, with students taking part in a “one for all” themed makeathon competition. The idea, says Nicole Lee 24 GD, who is co-president of RISD IDSA, was to provide “an opportunity for students to form groups, ideate and research, design and prototype solutions focusing on the idea of community engagement and addressing the unique challenges that diverse communities face.” The student contestants were encouraged to pop in and out of the panel discussions happening upstairs, and mentors in turn would visit the basement to give feedback and support to the teams, which, says Lee, created “a really fun back and forth interaction.”

First place went to a team that designed a food truck concept to bridge connections between the Brown and RISD communities, based on the idea that if a RISD student and a Brown student visited the food truck together, they would be given free food. Cash prizes were awarded for the top three projects through the EShip Opportunity Fund (a subset of the RISD Fund). “It really fits in with the entire theme of everyone coming together for this one RISD day to celebrate new and ongoing ideas from students and alumni,” says Wanitprapha. “I think it was a good mashup of every positive thing in the RISD community.”

Image credits: Dee Speaks Visuals