While campus may be abuzz with the excitement that often surrounds elections for Student Council, a handful of students are more anxious about a different set of votes. Last semester the Whiting School of Engineering announced its first WSE Video Competition, and 12 groups jumped at the chance to show that Hopkins students can be creative when it comes to promoting our great engineering feats.
Contestants had to create an entirely original video. It could be anything from a film noir to a documentary to a romantic comedy, as long as it was about engineering. All full-time undergraduate and graduate students at Hopkins could apply, whether they were enrolled in the Engineering School or in the Krieger School of Arts & Sciences, and researchers also got the chance to join in the fun and self-promotion, as long as their group included at least one student.
Perhaps the most important of the few criteria involved in the contest are the themes. Every video had to fall under one of the following categories: 1) It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time, 2) A Day in the Life, 3) A New Discovery and 4) How it Works. However, these categories proved to be extremely broad, as several videos under the same heading all turned out to be completely different from one another.
For instance, A Day in the Life contains everything from a wild hunt for a MechE in his natural habitat to a trippy montage of machines. And A New Discovery ranges from a humorous video about fictitious inventions to an actual report of a new needle that will possibly revolutionize surgery.
The Digital Media Center (DMC) was an extremely helpful and integral piece to the video puzzle for many of the competitors. The DMC was readily available not only to lend out any filming equipment necessary to produce the videos, but to teach the creators how to use them as well. In fact, the center went so far as to host an Intersession course to help best prepare for the contest and create a professional-looking piece.
One such piece is "Hands On" created by seniors Alexander Mo and Cindy Fei. This video takes a unique approach, using only the hands of students to show their different adventures throughout the day. The camera follows Hopkins students' hands to testing sites, classrooms, laboratories and, ultimately, a poker game. The video is well-edited and has some pretty cool effects, most likely in credit to the skills gained from the Intersession course.
Another well produced film was "Self-Assembling Nanoliter Containers" by senior Dave Filipiak, and graduate students Mustapha Jamal and Tim Leong. However, despite its aesthetical prowess through 3D graphics, the video has a more direct and serious purpose. The creators are researchers with Dr. Gracias and have been working to create, well, self-assembling nanoliter containers! "The Gracias Group researchers have spent countless hours developing and refining their projects and I wanted everyone to have something to look back on years down the road," Filipiak said. "In addition, we wanted to promote Hopkins engineering to the country and the world and show what our students are capable of accomplishing. To be completely honest, from the very first minute we started this project, we were in consensus that we weren't doing this for the cash prize. There were far more important motives, including the aforementioned."
This may sound like a lofty goal, but, in fact, Filipiak's statement keeps in tune with the competitions' ultimate objective. Abigail Lattes, the director of marketing and communications of the Whiting School of Engineering, affirms that a large purpose of the competition as a whole is to show to prospective students what life at Hopkins is really like for an engineer. Lattes claims, "They want, and deserve, authentic perspectives on the school." She also believes that the videos "illustrate aspects of life here that can't be captured in a view book or on a campus tour." Not to mention many of them are interesting and funny!
Freshman Elliot Mahlof believes that humor is the most important aspect of his video "Engineering in the Kitchen." "I want people to get a laugh out of my video," Mahlof said. "It is probably marginally about engineering and more about me making a fool of myself. So hopefully I make the viewers at least smile!"
Of course, even the sillier videos, such as Mahlof's, have a larger function than simply entertaining viewers. The competition allows for those participating to have a deeply rewarding experience as well. Mahlof insists that "the video was important to me because it allowed me to express my creativity, which is something I do not normally get to do here at Hopkins taking science course after science course. So it was definitely a nice change of pace for me."
Alex Mo agreed, saying that "This video project also allowed me to do something completely different that what I normally do during the school year and concentrate wholeheartedly on it. It was definitely an experience I will cherish for years to come."
Even Mustapha, who worked on one of the most research-driven and informative films in the bunch, concurred that the competition is more than just advertising new discoveries. "The WSE Video Competition allows us engineers to show our creativity in ways that are seldom possible in the classroom," he said. "It's also our chance to show the Hopkins community and society at-large that engineering can actually be exciting, and dare I say it ... fun!"
The videos will also hopefully be posted on sites such as YouTube to further promote the engineering school and its students' work.
The videos are to be judged by a diverse panel both within the Hopkins and Baltimore communities on criteria such as creativity, technical merit and how well the video promotes some aspect of engineering. However, everyone else can vote as well! While there are cash prizes for first through third place according to the judges, there is also a people's choice award. Therefore, anyone can go to the WSE Web site, view all the videos and vote for their favorite one! Not only will voters help somebody who worked hard to gain some recognition (and spending money), but they may just actually learn something while at it ... and maybe even laugh!
At the very least, the competition serves as an event to unify our often divided campus. All too often science people do science things and arts people do arts things, and the two never join forces. However, the WSE Video Competition works to eliminate this gap. Lattes notes that "activities like this - ones that bring together students from different majors, that combine efforts of arts & sciences and engineering students, for a fun purpose - are a great way to help build community on campus ... a good thing, in my opinion."
Videos can be found at http://engineering.jhu.edu/videocompetition08/peopleschoice.html. Voting ends on Monday, April 21.
