Faculty, students deploy creative construction for a good cause

A group of RIT students and faculty leveraged the collective power of technology, the arts, and design to do their part in a creative competition for a good cause.

The RIT team designed and built a “Day of the Dead” owl to comply with the Halloween theme of this year’s Canstruction Rochester initiative. Canstruction is a global nonprofit organization that holds design-build challenges to prompt the making of large-scale sculptures out of canned food, which is then donated to food banks and others in need. 

More than 1,500 pounds of canned goods were purchased to make the giant owl sculpture, complemented with sound effects, a motorized, 360-degree head, and LED-lit eyes. The participating students represented majors in the College of Art and Design,  Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences, and College of Engineering Technology. To prepare for the final construction, students made 3D CAD models and built armatures over two months of planning.

Juan Noguera, assistant professor of industrial design, and Dean Ganskop, lecturer in the Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences’ School of Information were the faculty leads of Canstruction. The students on the project were:

Industrial design

Kim Desantis, Audrey Gillette, Neeraj Sugumaran Menon, Tanisa Samaddar, and Jenna Schwartzberg

Web and mobile computing

Sophia Castiglione, Keiji Lohier, and Kieran Sullivan

Computer engineering technology

John Schulz

All of the Canstruction Rochester sculptures were built at the Strong National Museum of Play and will be on view there until Nov. 2. 

In addition to the College of Art and Design and College of Computing and Information Sciences, RIT’s Canstruction involvement was sponsored by Garlock and Smidgens, Inc.