RIT faculty and students win Best Original Design at international charity competition

A group of students and faculty from across RIT utilized the collective power of technology, the arts, and design to build an eight foot tall model of EVE from WALL-E, entirely out of canned goods.

Inspired by this year’s Canstruction theme, Cosmic Conquest: Rise of the Cans, this sculpture continues an RIT tradition of participating in Canstruction Rochester, an international charity competition where students, engineers, architects, and contractors compete to design and build giant structures made entirely from canned foods. The competition helps raise public awareness around food insecurity and, most importantly, all the food is ultimately donated to local food banks.

More than 2,400 cans of food were collected this year to make RIT’s giant EVE sculpture, which is complemented by animated eyes. The participating students represented majors in the College of Art and Design, Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences, College of Engineering Technology, and the Kate Gleason College of Engineering. To prepare for the final construction, students made 3D CAD models and designed a program that runs on a Raspberry Pi to animate EVE's eyes. The final sculpture won Best Original Design at the Canstruction Rochester awards gala.

“I think the professors really made an effort to include everyone,” Anushka Sharma, a first year HCI student, recounts. “Plus, knowing that what we were doing was a good cause was motivational. I can definitely see myself doing it again next year!”

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 leads of this year’s Canstruction team. The students on the project were:

Computing and Information Technologies

Dhiyanesh Thangamani Kumaravelu, Annu Abhilash, Abdullah Najumudeen, Faiz Ahmed

Computer Engineering Technology

John Schulz

Cybersecurity

Aaina Shifas

Human-Computer Interaction

Anushka Sharma

Industrial Design (BFA)

Maggie Reynolds, Page Panagos, Thomas Thiel, Molly Watson

Industrial Design (MFA)

Sash Sriganesh, Sonali Singh, Reza Bavarsad

Mechanical Engineering

Malik Rizni

Web and Mobile Computing

Sophia Castiglione, Keiji Lohier, and Kieran Sullivan

All of the Canstruction Rochester sculptures were built at the Strong National Museum of Play and will be on view until October 25th.

In addition to the College of Art and Design and Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences, RIT’s Canstruction involvement was sponsored by Garlock, Matthew & Fields Lumber Company, and TripWells Laser Cutting.