New Media students work with Ontario Science Centre to create an exhibition for KidSpark
In NMA 830: Co-Lab students partner with mentors from a cultural institution to develop real-world solutions to creative challenges.
This past fall, students partnered with The Ontario Science Centre (external link) , where they learned to develop interactive exhibits for public display.
Building off the theme of Energy in Transition, New Media student teams ideated, designed, prototyped, revised, and finally fabricated and installed six (6) tangible exhibitions that each utilized a wide range of interactive disciplines.
Team Food (Claire Watt, Madeline Hanitijo, Marianna Vasquez, Rebecca Tse, Sarah Lee, Sky Wong) created “Food Fighters!” a pokemon-inspired exhibit where visitors must curate balanced meals out of a collection of adorable food-based characters to do battle with hunger and low energy!
Team Fairies (Emalita Natividad, Joanne Ammari, Madeline Dam-Hoang, Raven Zhang Liu) created “Solar Fairies” a fantasy-inspired exhibit where young visitors charge a magic wand by answering quiz questions about photosynthesis that they then use to “feed” some robotic flowers and make them bloom!
Team Sunergy (Anna Lu, Ethan Wong, Jadyn Ma, Trisha Anne Parco) created “Watts in the House” an interactive exhibit about green-energy that gets kids moving by cranking or pumping to generate energy to power appliances in a virtual house!
Team Sailors (Jamie Oosterdag, Kaylee Li Tse Vee, Lilly Miller, Maria-Nikolette Muraru) created “Solar Sailors” an arcade-inspired interactive game where the player becomes the captain of a space-faring vessel that uses solar sails to power itself. Through this challenge, the player crosses through mysterious time-portals that communicate info about how propulsion has powered humanity through the ages!
Team BBB (Eamon Boily, Evan Clarke, Jen LeMoyne, Liam White, Ruslan Galimov) created “Busy Beaver Building” a block-based game that allows younger learners to explore the components of an eco-powered town by mixing a variety of hydro, thermal, and wind-based generators across the needs of the community.
Team Charge (Amarachi Ndubuisi, Chantelle DeJesus, Sarah Alzakari, Sarah Noor, Yemi Uduaghan) created “Charge the Battery & Power the City” an elaborate interactive diorama that invites visitors to crank or pump energy into a miniature community and see how their effort is distributed to make everything come alive.
Each team divided themselves into flexible roles to take on material design & fabrication, software & media development, electronics and AV design, graphic design and printing, and of course project management and organization. This unique experiential learning opportunity emulates the industry-standard design process, but at a much more accelerated pace - they do this all in only 12 weeks!
These students installed and exhibited these projects at the OSC KidSpark located at the popular Harbourfront Centre in downtown Toronto from Dec 4th to 7th 2025. Over the weekend-held exhibition, all visitors to the museum were able to explore, play, learn, and ultimately provide real-world experience and feedback to the cohort of New Media students.
CoLab (NMA830) is led by Professor Mark Argo and supported by Technical Team of Simon Lynch and Angelina Almanza. This course runs bi-yearly and will be back on the calendar in Fall 2027.