Rosa Weinberg

Summer 2018 NuVu Studio

Co-Coached with Luis Carbajal, Diana Yan, and Jewel Lin
Photography and film by Amro Arida

In this studio, students explored the creation of human-cyborg enhancements. Students tackled ideas that are almost never looked at as prosthetics. While a large majority of the prosthetics field is focused on creating limbs to rehabilitate a patient returning to a state of “normalcy”, this studio has focused on creating prosthetics that make the wearer more than human.

This studio was a virtual exchange with students at NuVu’s partner school at the Karam House in Reyhanli, Turkey. Karam House is a space run by Karam Foundation in partnership with NuVu, providing a safe space for Syrian refugee youth to develop through innovative education.

Fall 2016/Winter 2016 NuVu Studio (these are the first two of seven collaborations)

Co-Coached with Emily Glass and Jenny Kinard
Photography and videography by Amro Arida

In a collaboration that began in 2016 and continues to the present, students at NuVu Studio have been working with renowned choreographer Heidi Latsky and dancers in Heidi Latsky Dance to design and fabricate sculptural wearables for ON DISPLAY. Heidi Latsky Dance is a physically integrated Dance company, meaning that some dancers have disabilities and some do not. ON DISPLAY is an installation that uses fashion as a tool of social justice aiming to celebrate the beauty of difference.

Students, in teams of two, work closely with a dancer to create a sculptural wearable that expresses a pivotal life event, characteristic, or narrative. These wearables have appeared in performances at the Whitney Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, Lincoln Center Outdoors and more.

Article in Mashable about one of the studios, see here.

Panel with NuVu Student Nina Cragg, Dancer Tiffany Geigel, and Choreographer Heidi Latsky, see here.

Co-taught with Robin Hsieh and Aaron Laniosz
View film about studio, by Amro Arida
Link to the full studio

Through Access Sport America, students worked with Ross Lilley's athletes to design and fabricate non-traditional wearable mechanical/mechatronic devices to help each with activities and experiences. The athletes are working hard, and the students' work will help them get farther, and help them to return to hobbies they had before their stroke or traumatic brain injury.  We will have input and expertise from Lyman Connor, Global Design Leader for Turbine Controls for GE, and the creator of a low-cost 3D printed robotic prosthetic hand. 

Special thanks to formlabs for supporting this studio.

Winter 2015 NuVu Studio

Co-Coached with Javier Leal

Press in Boston Globe

In this studio, Students worked remotely with Instituto Nuevo Amanecer in Monterrey, Mexico to create devices and wearables for kids with Cerebral Palsy. In collaboration with Javier Leal of Mas Libertad Menos Barreras, students spent two, two-week studios working full-time on this project at NuVu and then travelled to Monterrey for a week to work directly with kids. While in Monterrey, students at Monterrey Tec worked with our students to progress their projects. Three of the projects won Core 77 Design Awards in the student category.

Co-taught with Jose Luis Garcia del Castillo y Lopez
Photography by Amro Arida

In this studio, students worked with and for Lee Cusack, a U/X designer who has spastic quadriplegic cerebral palsy. Students designed systems and devices to amplify communication and motor abilities for daily activities and hobbies. 

Fall 2018 NuVu Studio

Co-Coached with Tim Robinson
Photography by Amro Arida

We can see towns across the United States that have lost their lively main streets to big box stores lining the suburbs. Cities such as Cambridge have dense nodes that have survived but are on the brink of change. If we look out our window, we see an evolving landscape at the intersection between old and new, mom & pop and corporate. In this studio students made guerilla marketing for local businesses. Students investigated a local businesses, conducted interviews, and created a functional object that highlights it in some way and is fixed in space.

Student were tasked with making projects that were interactive, mechanically driven, and relate to the business they are focusing in on. Students will interview business owners/users and utilize this information in the development of project ideas.

Spring 2018 NuVu Studio

Co-Coached with Netia McCray

In the build-up to Avengers: Infinity War and inspired by the response to Black Panther, Mbadika and NuVu Studio teamed up to imagine that each Boston neighborhood is its own Marvel Universe. Students designed and fabricated customized superhero wearables and devices based on interviews with six local “superheroes” from different Boston communities. These superheroes were community leaders, storytellers, innovators and mentors of all ages -- people who have a special gift for bringing communities together to make change.

Spring 2018 NuVu Studio

Co-Coached with Ji Jiyoo

Students designed performative wearables for a fashion show in Calderwood Hall at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Students visited the Gardner Museum, studied the art, the history and the architecture and through research and analysis distilled ideas that served as concepts for their projects.

Co-taught with Robin Hsieh
Expert: Gabe Miller, San Diego Zoo

In collaboration with Gabe Miller of the San Diego Zoo, Students designed and fabricated devices and wearables to help users gain direct experience from the point of view of an endangered animal as a way of building empathy.  

This was accomplished using a variety of strategies. In "Dolphin-like Discombobulation" the dominant sense of dolphins was reinterpreted as vision, and a spinning periscope was used to mimmic the disorientation dolphins experience due to underwater noise pollution. "Empathy Net" sought to recreate the experience of a turtle stuck in a net. "The Resistor" used a cycling mechanism on a leash to allow users to attempt to experience what a fish goes through when caught on a fishing line.

Fall 2015 NuVu Studio

For full studio, see here

Fall 2014 NuVu Studio

Summer 2016 NuVu Studio

Co-Coached with Robin Hsieh

For full studio, see here

In this Studio, students developed health-focused wearable tech products. Using innovative textiles, materials and technologies, students learned to how to design wearable tech products that will improve the lives of people, patients, doctors and other healthcare professionals. 

Fall 2014 NuVu Studio

For full studio, see here

In Easing The Street students were asked to respond critically to issues related to homelessness. Students created projects that spanned the spectrum from conceptual to practical.

Summer 2014 NuVu Studio

Co-coached with Eric Timmons

See here for full studio

Zoom your way through this studio by building your own RC model of a fantasy motorcycle! Learn about all the components that make your motorcycle vroom: motors, batteries, engines, radio signals, types of chassis and wheels, and robotic intelligence.

In this studio, students will be constructing an electric motorcycle with a fantasy theme. They will also evaluate the merits of nitro and gasoline combustion. Students will ride the waves of radio frequency and modulation, thus understanding how transmitters and receivers communicate. Other topics of discussion include on-road versus off-road suspension, how RC models compare to full-sized motorcycles, and levels of robotic intelligence (automaton, remote control, teleoperation, full autonomy). Students will experience the hands-on joy of soldering, drilling, and building circuits before applying a custom paint job for the finishing touch. Then it’s off to the races in a final exhibition where the fantasy motorcycle whoosh to save the world!

Spring 2015 NuVu Studio

Co-Coached with Daniel Rosenberg

For full studio, see here

In Being an Alien: Feelings from Another World, students will explore sensory augmentation or modification to expand the human experience of both earth and outer space.

Winter 2015 NuVu Studio

Co-Coached with Nathan Melenbrink and Saeed Arida in collaboration with New Balance Shoes

For full studio, see

In collaboration with New Balance Shoes, students at NuVu were tasked with designing and prototyping shoes that adapted to at least two different scenarios. Troy Schubert and Dana Maringo from New Balance introduced the process of shoe design and production to the students.

Summer 2015 NuVu Studio

Winter 2015 NuVu Studio

Co-Coached with Erin Pelligrino

For full studio, see here

In NuVuEnabled, students will explore what it means to be in a wheelchair and be a maker. With the help of Mohammad Sayed, a former student who uses a wheelchair, students will create devices to make NuVu's fabrication equipment fully accessible. We will be making the laser and 3D printer files available, along with construction diagrams and directions, to enable users at maker spaces across the country.

Fall 2015 NuVu Studio

Co-Coached with Nathan Melenbrink

For full studio, see here

Cities will be increasingly relying on busses as the transportation of the future. But busses aren't viewed by the public as a desirable way to get from point A to point B; they're unpleasant to ride and slow. Although at this point, we can't change the speed, we can make waiting for the bus more fun and more interesting. We waiting for the bus an activity people line up for even if they're not taking the bus. In this studio, NuVu students will be working with guidance from the City of Cambridge on Livable Streets' initiative to make riding the bus more enticing. In groups of 2 and 3, students will chose one of the sign posts that defines a stop along the #1 Bus Route and create a installation that inspires play or provides information.