Student Engagement

At CHI, we’re here to help you connect your ideas with bigger opportunities. You don’t have to squeeze your work into someone else’s project. Instead, we make space for your research to grow inside larger Meta-Projects—so your goals stay yours while linking up with a wider community across every discipline.

What CHI means for Student Engagement (in one sentence)

CHI is City Tech’s platform for interdisciplinary + meta-integrative collaboration, shifting integration from just a tool to a goal in itself, and empowering students from any discipline to join research, creative work, and real-world outcomes.

What’s a Meta-Project (and why you’ll like it)

Keep your idea. Plug into something bigger.
Credits, portfolios, showcases, and publications flow from there.

A meta-project is a big, shared umbrella where many smaller projects can live. You bring your own topic, methods, and outcomes; CHI helps you connect them to a larger frame so they reach further—without changing your original intent. That’s meta-integration: your goals stay yours while your work links into a broader ecosystem.

For: Blended Shadow Puppet (BSP).
BSP is a long-running meta-project that honors Javanese Wayang Kulit (shadow puppetry) while reinterpreting it with contemporary media. Students join the central theatrical production and contribute from their own disciplines: some hand-craft shadow puppets and staging rigs; others design virtual puppets and scenes; fashion/textile makers prototype projection-ready fabrics (organza, embroidery, dye/print) to explore how virtual light interacts with physical pigment on stage; engineers create the systems that run the show (control, sensing, media); writers, composers, and artists expand a shared fictive universe that spans stage, comics, games, VR/AR, keeping continuity through an illustrated world model and source-mapping. In parallel, Collaborative AI is treated as an integrated meta-project: students and AI co-author at every level—writing, design, scoring, timing, media/puppetry control, even AI as a puppeteer—while robotics/aero teams explore drone swarms that behave like a flock, and others build balanced virtual environments so each production can live not only in the theatre but also in networked virtual spaces—within combinative reality (CR), where physical experience and virtual information interweave in real time. Throughout, BSP doubles as a BBS investigation: we study mediation pathways, agency and symmetry between human and AI collaborators, and the ethical ramifications of our choices—authorship, attribution, cultural respect, consent/privacy, and transparency. Any discipline can plug in and still keep its original goals—the meta-project simply helps those goals travel further.

Bottom line: meta-projects let your work stand on its own—and stand together.

How to read this map

This diagram shows how Blended Shadow Puppet (BSP) sits inside CHI’s ecosystem. BBS provides the framework for mediation, authorship, and ethics; the systems that run the show connect through BRPS; and student lanes (eg. theatre, narrative, textiles, sound, robotics/AI, documentation, research) dock into BSP to make real work together. This is the BSP view—other meta-projects have their own maps and connections.

Find your lane

Pick the circle that matches your skills or curiosity—perform, fabricate a puppet, design virtual scenes, prototype projection-ready textiles, compose sound/music, program control paths, explore collaborative AI, build balanced virtual+physical (combinative reality) spaces, document the process, or do BBS research, among others. Write a one-paragraph idea. We’ll match you with a mentor and a BSP track; your goals stay yours, and the work scales into public outcomes.

Buttons: Propose Your Idea · Explore BSP Tracks

Jump into a project

Continuing projects (from last semester)
Pick up momentum. These already exist and need new contributors (clear roles, quick wins).
Button: Browse continuing projects →

New projects (ready to launch)
Fresh proposals with mentors attached. Help shape the first milestone.
Button: See new projects →

Speculative ideas (pitch-ready prompts)
Open prompts looking for a lead. Treat these as seeds—rewrite, remix, or combine.
Button: Explore speculative ideas →

Propose something else!
Have your own idea? Fantastic. Tell us in a paragraph and we’ll match you to a mentor and lane.
Button: Propose your idea →

How to Select a Meta-Project

1. Lay a marker that defines your interest.
   Think about what you want to make / do / learn, and write one or two sentences.
   Template: “I want to [create/do/learn] [thing] for [who] so that [impact], within [timeframe].”

2. Browse the umbrellas.
   Look through the meta-projects (and sub-projects) and note any that align with your marker. Jot down 1–3 candidates and how your idea could plug in. Refine your concept as you go.

3. Meet a CHI mentor.
   Bring your marker + candidate umbrellas. In a short chat we’ll tune the scope, suggest collaborators, and map first milestones.

4. Write a short proposal (together).
   In consultation with your mentor, draft a one-page proposal and you’re rolling.

One-Page Proposal (quick outline)

• Title

• Your marker statement  (1–2 sentences)

• Selected meta-project(s) + lane(s) (e.g., theatre, textiles, sound/music, systems/control, collaborative AI, narrative/world-building, documentation, research/BBS, CR)

• What you’ll do this term (3 bullets)

• Deliverables (performance / essay or paper / software or code / dataset / exhibit / documentary / merch)

• Timeframe (2–4 wks · 4–8 wks · semester)

• Mentor + collaborators

• Ethics & attribution notes (source credit—e.g., Wayang Kulit lineage; AI attribution; consent/privacy; cultural respect)
  
  

Buttons: Book a Mentor Chat · Submit Proposal Draft

Fall 2024