Assistant Professor of Art and Art History Jamie Meltzer has directed four documentary films to date and recently raised $31,520 through Kickstarter for a fifth, entitled “Freedom Fighters.” Meltzer sat down with The Daily to discuss his hopes for the film and how he became involved with the Freedom Fighters.
When Thomas Pauly ’12 and Rebecca Hecht ’12 needed funding for their senior project, a theatrical production titled “The Ones Left Behind,” they took an unconventional approach to raising the funds. After receiving a generous but insufficient Angel Grant — a $3,000 grant provided by Undergraduate Advising and Research (UAR) to assist students in producing public creative works — the pair created a project on Kickstarter, a popular “crowd-funding” platform that allows individuals to seek funding for creative projects.
A brainchild of Kent Frankovich M.S. ’10, Revolights are LED lighting systems that connect to the bike’s wheels, producing a white light on the front half of the bike and a red light on the back, which allow bikers to see more clearly and increase their visibility. The idea for the lighting system struck Frankovich while he was completing his master’s degree in mechanical engineering at Stanford, when he noticed the shortcomings of his traditional, handlebar-mounted light, which pointed ahead but did not offer the rider much visibility from the side.
The WINGStand is an injection-molded clip made from recycled plastic, which allows one to attach most portable devices to an Apple wireless keyboard. It garnered recognition from WIRED and a host of other technology review websites and received $58,869 in seed money from 1,485 backers — far exceeding the original target of $9,600.