Imagination. It’s the thought that breaks barriers, the out-of-the-box perspective that flips a problem on its head, and the birds-eye view. Imagination unites, pushes, propels, and inspires us to create a better world. Join TEDxMileHigh on November 16 and cultivate your imagination through the Exhibits and Experiences Lounge.
You will find individuals and organizations that are making a positive impact in the Denver community. You will have the opportunity to interact with ideas and experience different perspectives through the hands-on exhibits. Awaken your imagination and connect with other imaginative minds at the Exhibits and Experience Lounge. Here’s the lineup:
ATLAS Research Institute at CU Boulder | Tangible Future Tech
ATLAS is a radically interdisciplinary research institute at the University of Colorado Boulder, ATLAS is a place where artists write code and robots read body language. The diverse and energetic community includes research labs, undergraduate and graduate degree programs, and a faculty that spans computer science, design, chemistry, robotics, bioscience and more. It’s fixation: Inventing the future.
What You’ll Experience
First, engage in Mechamagnets, a design platform that explores a technique to rapidly prototype haptic and functional physical interfaces through desktop 3D printing and embedded static magnets. Next, enter the Talking Tree, a tactile experience where you can listen to data stored in a ring of a tree. And finally, jump into Hot Swap, the award-winning chaotic partner game. Can you and your partner fight off pirates and keep the ship afloat?
Danny Rankin, one of the TEDxMileHigh: Imagine speakers, is a professor at ATLAS. Get to know Danny.
Casa de Paz | Step Into My Shoes
Casa de Paz reunites families separated by immigrant detention and provides hospitality for immigrants leaving detention. Their goal is to ease the isolating experience of immigrant detention, one simple act of love at a time.
What You’ll Experience
Begin to understand the plights of detained immigrants. Step into actual shoes of detained immigrants and read, listen, and/or watch a story of someone who is currently detained. After you immerse yourself in the story, Casa de Paz will invite people to write the immigrant a message of hope and the organization will deliver it to a detained immigrant.
Facebook | Instagram
Conversation Camp and Cafe
Connect with your community in conversation. Immerse yourself in a shared experience that strengthens bonds between strangers by sharing meaningful conversation over food.
What You’ll Experience
In the morning session, visit the Conversation Camp and get into that Colorado vibe we all know and love. Hop into a tent or sit in a camp chair by the bonfire and embrace your imagination through writing prompts. Reflect on your role in your community and how you relate to others: you’ll fill out a journal entry then engage in conversation with a fellow attendee.
During intermission, grab your lunch and stroll into the Conversation Cafe. Sit at a table with strangers (soon-to-be peers), check out the menu of questions, and share your thoughts. In a roundtable discussion, chat through topics around culture, identity, and society.
Make America Dinner Again
Make America Dinner Again connects people of differing beliefs for civil discourse over shared meals.
The Same Plate
The Same Plate was created with the intention of connecting people through cultural food experiences. Their curated monthly events aim to highlight the cultural vibrancy that underpins our city and connects people to culture and to each other. Join them at their next event.
We Talk Real Talk
We Talk Real Talk are reclaiming the sense of community and humanity that is available, yet untapped. They create technology-free spaces with real conversations. They want to see you and hear from you. Join the conversation.
Instagram
Sponsored By Mountain High Appliance
Mountain High Appliance is Colorado’s premier family-owned appliance retailer.
Facebook
energilab | Making Energy Fun!
energilab is about kid-powered, open-source energy making energy fun! So fun that you won’t realize that you are learning more than ever while riding a stationary bike.
What You’ll Experience
In the morning, power up a bubble machine or make a piece of toast pop by pedaling on a stationary bike with your fellow attendees. During intermission, get your legs spinning again to power live music from a DJ and earn yourself a taste of pedal-powered ice cream.
Galvanize | C0DE-vember
Galvanize is the ultimate technology ecosystem. Their eight campuses across the country bring together innovative startups, large enterprises, and a unique learning community including aspiring data scientists and software engineers.
What You’ll Experience
Watch a live coding and data segmentation on a TV and get behind the screen as you look at the backend of tech. Discover the uniqueness of our tech ecosystem – how students, coworking members, and enterprise training corporations intermingle and thrive off of one another.
Facebook | Twitter | Instagram
GoodCinema | Imagine Immersion
GoodCinema hosts immersive empathic experiences that integrate thought-provoking media content with discussions and activities that build connections and drive impact.
What You’ll Experience
Explore through the lenses of design, society, and emotion with interactive discussions and activities. Meet your fellow attendees and dive deep into conversation hubs. Then, during the After Party at Le Meridien, join a discussion and get to know the TEDxMileHigh: Imagine speakers and other attendees.
Facebook | Twitter | Instagram
Imagine! | Creating a World of Opportunity for All Abilities
Imagine! provides services designed to incorporate people with developmental, cognitive, and physical challenges into the fabric of their communities. Services include educational and therapeutic programs, job training and placement, opportunities for community living, and support for families.
Imagine! has teamed up with Reality Garage to develop a teaching program focused on learning essential job skills for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
What You’ll Experience
Encounter a novel application of virtual reality. For this specific project, in collaboration with Left Hand Brewing Company, they have built a virtual reality experience that creates the bottling line environment at Left Hand Brewery.
Facebook | Twitter | Instagram
Kinetonics | Uncover your Moves
Kinetonics provides neurological function and productivity-boosting movement-based sessions to help participants grow and heal. With consistent sessions, participants strengthen their physical, mental, and emotional health; overcome challenges and obstacles; find joy and meaning in their lives; and achieve their potential. Kinetonics provides customized programs for groups, teams, families, couples, and individuals.
What You’ll Experience
Experience an obstacle course that will provoke and invite you to move in ways that are fun and require little space. Answer questions like, “how do you get moving?”, “how do you imagine yourself moving?”, “where?”, “with whom?” on a large scratch-off board.
Instagram
KOIOS
KOIOS strives to help people live healthier and more productive lives, by creating earth-grown, science-driven products that enhance human productivity. Try some of their yummy products at the event!
Our Journey to Mars: Surviving on Mars and the Trip to Get There
We’ve studied Mars for over 50 years. What do we know about the Red Planet and how do we imagine the first human mission? Immerse yourself in a short planetarium show, then imagine what it would be like to live on Mars by interacting with the technology and innovations currently in development at CU Boulder.
CU Boulder: Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP)
LASP’s vision is to maintain world-leadership status in identifying and addressing key questions in planetary science, space physics, solar influences, and atmospheric science.
Allison Anderson, one of the TEDxMileHigh: Imagine speakers, will be running this lab. Get to know Allie.
CU Boulder: Aerospace Engineering Sciences – Bioastronautics
The Aerospace Engineering Sciences at CU Boulder will use bioastronautics in this Mars exhibit. Bioastronautics encompasses biological, behavioral and medical aspects governing humans and other living organisms in a space flight environment; and includes design of payloads, spacecraft habitats, and life support systems. In short, this focus area spans the study and support of life in space.
CU Boulder: Fiske Planetarium
The Fiske Planetarium offers a diverse range of full-dome films, star talks, live talks, laser and liquid sky shows, concerts, and special live events, as well as host large public gatherings during astronomical and NASA-related events. Fiske believes in innovating immersive, educational experiences to engage, inspire, and build an inclusive community.
Facebook | Instagram
q|co design | The Story Unfolds
q|co is a Colorado-based design and manufacturing house born from the spirit of inquiry. As a company, they aspire to create beautiful, enduring design without depleting the Earth’s resources, infuse the built environment with a sense of wonder and curiosity often experienced in natural scapes, and foster sustainable careers for local artists, designers, craftsmen, and manufacturers.
What You’ll Experience
Co-author wild, crazy, moving, silly, thoughtful, and poignant tales one block at a time. Discover how a story unfolds when each sentence marks a change in narrator, prior sentences are hidden from view, and narrators alternate between words and images.
Instagram
Reality Garage | VR for a Better World
Reality Garage is a Virtual Reality/Alternate Reality development company based in Boulder that creates virtual and augmented reality for a better world.
What You’ll Experience
Explore virtual reality with the Adventures Series and Wild Animal Vision. Put on a headset and see just how real it is! Then check out Reality Garage’s collaboration with Imagine!, a vocational training experience that enables adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities to prepare for work at Left Hand Brewery using VR technology.
Facebook | Twitter | Instagram
Rocky Mountain Micro Ranch | Explore Edible Insects
Rocky Mountain Micro Ranch is Colorado’s first and only edible insect farm. Since 2015, they have raised edible insects for chefs, food manufacturers, and anyone who loves delicious, sustainable food.
What You’ll Experience
Learn the how and the why of eating insects, test your knowledge about edible insects, and, of course, sample this ancient food that’s become a trending delicacy for chefs around the world.
Facebook | Twitter | Instagram
Shannon Geis & Becky Wareing Steele | Personal Geographies: Reconstructing Memories of Place
Shannon Geis is a freelance audio and multimedia producer and an oral historian. Becky Wareing Steele is an artist specializing in small scale sculpture. Together, they’re launching a new collaborative art project which translates individuals’ memories of spaces they’ve occupied in the past into auditory and visual installations in the present.
What You’ll Experience
Contribute to a fascinating and collaborative body of artwork: draw a map of a place that has significance in your life and record a description of your memory.
Instagram
TARRA | Leave Your Mark
TARRA is a curated network of people, ideas, and resources designed to advance thriving careers, champion innovative businesses, and promote fulfilling lives for a diverse group of inspired women. By facilitating access to effective resources—collaboration, community, learning, mentorship—TARRA is cultivating the next generation of entrepreneurs, innovators, and leaders.
Leave Your Mark is a “make one, take one” idea and bookmark exchange for the TEDxMileHigh community.
What You’ll Experience
First, write your favorite quote, mantra, idea, or fact on a blank notecard and decorate it to your heart’s content. Next, add your completed bookmark to the idea wall and select one of the completed bookmarks to keep as your own.
TEDxMileHigh Bookstore | Powered by Tattered Cover
Tattered Cover is a large indie bookstore with locations in Union Station, Littleton, LoDo, and Colfax Avenue. They are a Denver institution, a community gathering place, and an experience you can’t download.
What You’ll Experience
Meet and greet with speakers, buy their books, and get them signed!
Facebook | Twitter | Instagram
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) | Resiliency Starts With You: A VR Experience
Committed to building a culture of resiliency and preparedness, FEMA helps communities before, during, and after disasters.
What You’ll Experience
Engage in an exciting, fully-immersive VR experience that puts you at the center of an epic flood crisis, allowing you to understand the cost and impact of flooding, as well as the actions you can take to reduce your own risk.
Facebook | Twitter | Instagram
University of Denver – Arts Technology Institute and University of Colorado Denver – Recording Arts | Electronic Sound Bath
Michael Schulze directs the Bachelor of Music Recording and Production program at the University of Denver, Lamont School of Music. He is an audio engineer, music and video producer, and a composer of electronic music. Pursuing breakthroughs in artistic expression and technical innovation, we convene, train, and support new generations of artists, performers, and technologists in a space of arts, science, and entertainment to make a lasting impact on our creative society. The University of Colorado Denver Recording Arts program prepares graduates to work as audio engineers with many contemporary styles of music recording and editing. This experience is a collaboration with Resonant Interactions, Denver Modular Synth Society, and QSC.
What You’ll Experience
Immerse yourself in a sound bath and experiment with an electronic instrument petting zoo. Try something new and hear new sounds as you shape the music surrounding you.
Facebook | Twitter | Instagram
See all of these exhibitors on November 16 at TEDxMileHigh: Imagine.
Missed the Event?
If you missed the event, you can still expand your imagination: watch the TEDxMileHigh: Imagine talks, read about relevant topics on the TEDxMileHigh blog, and stayed tuned for the next event.
