The Wire

It's hard to describe just how fabulous the Fourth Annual Emoti-Con! NYC Youth Digital Media and Technology Challenge was this past Saturday. 151 youth and educators packed into the Lang Student Center at Parsons the New School for Design--including 51 Mouse Squad Members and 9 Mouse Squad Coordinators!--bringing with them an amazing bunch of ideas, inventions, and enthusiasm!

The day started with a fun design challenge led by the A-Team, a group of youth who worked on planning Emoti-Con! all year long.

Throughout the day we heard from some incredible speakers: Michael Edwards (software engineer at The Huffington Post), Jeffrey Yohalem (lead writer of Assassins Creed: Brotherhood), Ayah Bdeir (TED fellow and creator of littleBits), and Naveen Selvadurai (co-founder of FourSquare). They had some great things to say, including about the importance of staying geeky, breaking things to make them better, and exploring your passions.

These amazing Mouse Squads represented Mouse at Emoti-Con!:

• The Gateway Academy Squad at P256Q brought TAP, their Technology Assisted Prototypes project!
• The Lewis and Clark Squad from Lewis and Clark High School brought Quenepas Bullies, a paper prototype for a serious game they developed using the Serious Games Specialist Certification!
• The iTeam at Lower East Side Preparatory High School brought their Digital Design project, which they made using the Garage Robotics Specialist Certification!
• The MSAP Mouse Squad from the Middle School of Art & Philosophy brought a series of projects, including a video and graphic design projects, that are part of an anti-bullying campaign they're working on!
• Halsey's Mouse Squad from JHS 157 Stephen A. Halsey brought a dome they made on their MakerBot 3-D printer! And last but not least...
• Mouse Corps students from James Madison High School, P256Q, Hudson High School of Learning Technologies, In-Tech Academy, International High School, and Baccalaureate School for Global Education brought four incredible projects that are all assistive technologies for people who are blind or vision-impaired: Dining Band, YourPath, SmartChair, and Fashionator.

Also among the fabulous presenters were youth from Global Kids, the Parsons Scholars Program, WNYC Radio Rookies, Institute of Play, Girls Write Now, DreamYard, The Museum for African Art, and the New York Public Library, with everything from video games to graphic design projects to podcasts, and more!

Winners from Mouse!

With so many incredible projects, it must have been a very tough decision for the judges and the voting audience, but in the end they picked four winning groups...including two from Mouse!

The Gateway Squad from P256Q took home the prize for Most Innovative, and the Dining Band Mouse Corps group took home the prize for Best Pitch, and also the trophy for Favorite Project!

THANK YOU to all the Mouse Squads who participated in Emoti-Con! The day would not have been the same without you! We're so proud of you, and so impressed by your amazing work this year!

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