Bluecadet Interactive

Poptech holds an annual conference in Camden, Maine that "brings together a global community of innovators from many fields to share insights and work together to create lasting change." I think of Poptech as a mini TED with a twist. In addition to the speakers on stage at Poptech were 22 Fellows -- people who are spearheading new ideas in science or social change. Below are some of our favorite experiences and presentations from the conference.

Pilobolus

UP: The Umbrella Project

Have you ever participated in a spontaneuous, collaborative, live public art project? It's a lot of fun. The modern performance company Pilobolus enlisted several hundred volunteers to participate in a live performance using umbrellas fabricated with multi-colored LED lights created by the MIT Distributed Robotics Laboratory. The performance was simultaneously projected onto a large screen. Read More

Bluecadet will be hosting a free happy hour and open house as part of this year's DesignPhiladelphia festival. Each year DesignPhiladelphia's festival highlights creative work from every part of Philadelphia's vibrant design community.

Our happy hour will be featuring our latest interactive touchscreen exhibits, websites, and apps, as well as delicious Underdogs hot dogs. Come grab a drink and a dog, and check out what's new. Vegan dogs and gluten free buns will also be available.

In web design, like print design, it takes a while to develop an effective creative process—hours of pushing pixels and creating idealized designs (that a client might not approve), making revisions, racking up hours, making more revisions. But eventually, we learn how to make it all work.

Stretching from City Hall, past the Barnes Foundation and the Rodin, to the world-famous Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia's Ben Franklin Parkway is proudly hailed as the "the most artistic mile in the country." The Greater Philadelphia Tourism and Marketing Corporation (GPTMC) sought a website that would showcase the museums on this mile for their "With Art Philadelphia" campaign.

On May 5, 2012, the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (Penn Museum) opened their world premiere exhibition MAYA 2012: Lords of Time. This timely exhibition explores the Maya's sophisticated systems of language and time and the complex artifacts they created for their god-like kings. The exhibition also easily disproves the myth that the Maya predicted the end of the world would happen on approximately December 21st of this year.

This was an exciting year at the American Association of Museums annual conference in Minneapolis. Bluecadet projects received four MUSE awards, hosted a session on creating interactive exhibits, and attended a party at the Minnesota History Center that included an elderly nun giving free massages.

Bluecadet's work for Counterspill won three Webbys! Counterspill received awards in the Green and Activism categories, plus a People's Voice in Activism. We are thrilled and humbled by the praise.

Counterspill.org challenges corporate and governmental spin on energy disasters. The site is a mixture of reporting, history, and social media, and both the Webby board and the voters found it worthy. Thanks to everyone who voted for us!

Bluecadet is excited to have received 3 nominations and 10 honorable mentions in the 16th Annual Webby Awards.

The Financial Times is famous for keeping its readers in the know on global trends and changes in world markets. For three days they shared some of this information in a big way. From March 27th to the 29th, Vanderbilt Hall in Grand Central Terminal was transformed by enormous 3D projections, including an interactive map controlled by 225 square feet of interconnected sensors. In addition to the map, the projection displayed infographic animations about the world economy, focusing on the United States, emerging economies, mobile use, recession, and recovery.

The interactive portion of the projection showed a giant map of the world.
(Photo courtesy of The Financial Times.)

In case you couldn't tell from the many great projects we have worked on at Bluecadet, we love Philadelphia.