Past Projects
Check out some of the amazing projects created by students from previous contests. From videos to mobile app mockups, these projects will show you just what’s possible with a little creativity and hard work.
Past Projects
Check out some of the amazing projects created by students from previous contests. From videos to mobile app mockups, these projects will show you just what’s possible with a little creativity and hard work.
Create-athon 2022
The design prompt for the first Create-athon was: how to help students acclimatize to on-campus student culture. Three group of students worked collaboratively from April 29th to May 2nd, 2022, to create three excellent proposals that address the prompt creatively.
Create-athon MINI
The Create-athon MINI was an informal design challenge occurring during orientation week in September 2022. Students worked on their own to create a digital media project addressing the prompt: “Show me why digital storytelling is important.”
Create-athon 2023
The Create-athon 2.0 was a one-day in-person event in March 2023. Students from all years of the program worked collaboratively in groups with a professional mentor to create a digital project or proposal addressing the prompt: My So-called Digital Life.
Create-athon 2022
Winning Group
Title: CuGo
Group members: Theo Dunn, Kayleigh Lewis, Joelle Lui, and Aria Zhang
Mentor: Zainab Muse
The group approached the design prompt, “how to help students acclimatize to on-campus student culture” with a desire to create an app and immersive/interactive platform designed to aid the student experience at Carleton University. It incorporates a navigation system to different Carleton resources and an online community that connects students with similar interests. Their project was very thoughtful and the group came about the design prompt from a perspective of accessibility and personal challenges they have all faced. The prototype provided an interesting way for students to create connections and find resources on campus.
Runner-Ups
Title: Pocket-Raven
Group members: Sebastian Frank, Xinpeng Liu, Bella MacCulloch, and Justin Sun
Mentor: Emily Flynn-Jones
“Pocket Raven” is your go-to app for Carleton University. The app has three key components: (1) socialization through the ability for users to create and join events, discussion groups, and clubs; (2) organization through a personalized schedule; and (3) navigation through an AR map. The group created an impressively thought-out prototype using Figma that included custom graphics and plenty of operability. Can you find any fun easter eggs?
Title: Radius
Group members: Maryam Abdelrahman, Kai Dao, Mya Somogyi, and JiaZiRuo Sun
Mentor: Danny Williams
The group created a personalized mapping prototype presented beautifully using their skills of digital storytelling. The mapping app provides a great way to create a customized experience for the user that would help make a large campus feel more relatable and help users discover new spaces based on their personal interests. The map will show above ground and tunnel travel for each destination and highlight new places to discover based on the user’s profile.
Create-athon MINI
Winning Entry
Created by: Kimberly Huang
Kimberly produced a short animation on the experiences of a young raccoon after his first day of school. The raccoon feels alone and disconnected from his town and identity. After watching a digital story on the life of another raccoon online, he can not only relate but learn and share everything he had learned with his small town. Kimberly shares that the purpose of the animation is to demonstrate the impact that digital stories can have on individuals. Its accessibility and effect on learning are important, especially in the youth. Digital stories can provoke our thoughts and affect people on an emotional level. They allow us to share, teach, learn, and connect. Not only that, but it can also spread awareness and knowledge on many different subjects and topics.
Runner-up
Created by: Theo Dunn and Kayleigh Lewis
Theo and Kayleigh produced a multimedia video sketch of their brainstorming for the Create-athon Mini to show the everyday importance of digital storytelling and how aspects of it are interwoven into our everyday communication. Theo and Kayleigh share that they strove to convey a message that portrays how important digital storytelling is in its day-to-day uses, as it would impact each of our viewers and help them reflect on how they harness digital storytelling to communicate.
Create-athon 2023
Winning Group
Title: A 21st-Century Best Friend
Group members: Beatrice Villadelgado, Kim Huang, Kunle Salami, Mackenzie Charbonneau
Mentor: Remco Volmer
The winning group created a short film, A 21st Century’s Best Friend, demonstrating the lack of boundaries society applies to their phones. The group storyboarded, filmed, and edited the video to create a concise submission with the clear message, “You have boundaries with your friends, have some with your phone.” By personifying the phone, the video illustrates how loud and intrusive the constant notifications, ads, and social media posts can be to the user. Their submission expresses the need for a reimagining of our relationship with technology and inspires the need to have boundaries with our digital media devices. The group is praised for having a clearly defined scope and purpose for their project.
Runner-Ups
Title: Perri Plant
Group members: Alicia Primiani, Andrew Charlebois, Angela Tran, Devin Carlier
Mentor: Abdul Muse
Perri Plant is a digital and physical companion intended to promote self-care. In its physical form, Perri Plant is a living plant that incorporates smart home technology within its base to provide digital assistance. Perri Plant can connect to the user’s calendar, apps, and preferences like similar digital assistants but focuses more on self-care by promoting a healthy relationship with technology, influencing positive habits, and examining the user’s vitals. In addition to the physical form, Perri Plant has a stand-alone app, videogames, and other media. Perri Plant positively combines the physical and digital to create a customizable living companion that focuses on the user’s self-care needs. The group is praised for their ambitious proposal that positively looks at how the digital can be integrated in our lives.
Title: My “So-Called” Digital Life Ironic Meta Game
Group members: Karina Szubert, Kayleigh Lewis, Somin An, Theo Dunn
Mentor: Julie Ivanoff
The ironic meta game, My “so-called” Digital Life is intended to critique the nature of digital and social media trends. By completing a quick quiz, users are given a niche persona and led through a series of absurd social media trends, only to receive few likes and followers. Users can randomly gain and lose metrics while the game’s algorithms and AI personalities prevent any user from winning. The purpose of the game is to have users reflect on the negative implications of social media and encourage them to build better digital communities with authentic representations. The group is praised for their unique format for critiquing social media and for its potential as a learning module for youth on the dangers of social media.