The 10th annual interactive media showcase FUSE will be hosted by the Peoria Riverfront Museum on Saturday, April 22.
The event will feature several groups consisting of a variety of students from several Bradley University departments, including User Experience Design, Game Design, Animation, and more.
Each student group will showcase their semester of work on a particular project. These projects consist of card and video games, virtual reality experiences, and animation exhibitions.
FUSE student producer Rachel Rudy is a sophomore game design major and member of the FUSE production team. Rudy is responsible for overseeing the entire production crew, and said her team is responsible for making sure the FUSE event runs smoothly.
Rudy said an entire academic year goes into creating this projects.
“At the beginning of the school year, not even this semester, but last semester, teams are created of students from all different disciplines,” she said, “and they pitch ideas for experiences or games that can be shown at FUSE, and then a few are selected. And then over the course of the next semester, they will create those experiences.”
These experiences are not things that students create in class; the projects are independent of regular schoolwork, but require a significant amount of collaboration and teamwork.
Teams consist of several students from a variety of disciplines. While the majority of students are majoring in subjects under the Interactive Media department, there are also a few communications, engineering, and computer science students.
Rudy said this event is a great opportunity for both prospective students and community members to get a glimpse of the work that Bradley University students partake in.
“I think the coolest thing, as someone who creates stuff, is to see people interacting with the stuff that you create. The most amazing experience ever, is to put work into a piece of art and then get to see people play with it. It's just, it's incredible. Nothing beats it,” she said.
Students are able to gain real, applicable knowledge from these projects and use them in their professional portfolios. Rudy also said the FUSE showcase is often the highlight of the interactive media student experience.
“Nothing beats being able to actually talk to the people that are doing it. And it can be hard to find professionals that want to talk to you about that stuff when you don't even know what questions you want to ask,” she said.
FUSE will be taking place from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. April 22 at the Peoria Riverfront Museum and is free to attend. For more information on the groups presenting their projects, visit bradleyinteractive.com.
