Visual Culture, Arts, and MediaVCAM

VCAM Design + Making Collaborative

Four summers ago, the VCAM Maker Arts Space launched its inaugural Design + Make Summer Collaborative, an eight-week immersion in design, prototyping, and digital fabrication in partnership with local community designers, artists and organizations. The goal of the program is to learn design and prototyping skills and to challenge students to fully realize their ideas.

In previous years, students have crafted furniture, designed outdoor playspaces, and built toys, among other projects. For Summer 2024, our focus will be video game design. Students will learn the gaming engine, Unity, and work independently (and collaboratively) on game concepts.

Four students will be fully funded for the eight week program that runs from June 1st through July. By the end of the fellowship participants will have an understanding of methods of digital design and game design and they will have several refined video game prototypes. Articles about the past fellowships can be read here: 2023 Chair Design Fellowship, 2022 Toy Design Fellowship, 2021 Playful Design Fellowship, and the 2020 Prosthetic Design Fellowship.

Unity?

Unity is a powerful interactive development tool for creating mobile and desktop games, 3D environments, real-time simulations and visualizations, and even short films. Some of the course will be level building, creating animations, and learning scripting (C sharp).

This summer the fellowship will be co taught by Kent Watson and a visiting Game Design Guest Artist/Designer. No prerequisites are required but it doesn’t hurt to have some prior experience.

How to Apply

Interested applicants should send application materials to dwatson1 [at] haverford.edu (subject: Summer%202024%20Fellowship%20Application) . Please send a cover letter explaining your interest in the fellowship and any previous experience you have in design, game design, computer languages or other experiences you think might be relevant. Also include your resume and two images of a previous project that you are proud of. This can be a school project or a personal project that you put a lot of effort in.

Application Timeline

• January 17, 2024: Applications Open at Noon
• March 5, 2024: Application Deadline by 11:59 p.m.
• March 13, 2024: Committee Reviews Applications
• March 16, 2024: Interviews begin
• March 28, 2024: Selected Fellows are Invited
• April 3, 2024: Acceptance Commitments Due

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Past Fellowships

Summer 2023

In 2023 the Design + Making Fellowship focused on chair design and architecture. Four fellows learned practical design and fabrication tools and applied those techniques to chair making.

Read about the 2023 fellowship

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Summer 2022

In 2022 the Design + Making Fellowship focused on toy design. Four fellows learned practical design and fabrication using the tools, techniques, and software of the Maker Space. 

Read about the 2022 fellowship

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Summer 2021

In 2021 the Design + Making Fellowship partnered with Playful Learning Landscapes (PLL) an organization dedicated to creating educational interactive objects of play. Students participated in designing, prototyping and creating playful learning landscapes. The work was informed by the design principles and ethos of the PLL team. Students worked hands on and digitally with the ultimate goal of creating safe and durable physical objects that encourage play.

Read about the 2021 fellowship